You did not deserve it. The concept that there are no excuses for infidelity because it hurts someone you promised to care for goes the same for selfish demands, disrespect, anger, and the other Lovebusters. That's why one has to decide between divorce or reconciliation, otherwise punishment is going on. No marriage heals with punishment or retribution.


This is the reality of the love bank concept in action.

I want to be with someone who makes me feel good about myself...

Wulffie, when that sentence is completed with:

...and now commit to making that a reality!

you will have taken ownership of the quality of your life.

Put another way: For exactly how little "marriage" are you willing to settle, and for how long?

He did post here for a while in SAA, maybe ~2 months. Between the Kindle and hard copy, we have most of Dr. H's books. I'd even bought the home study course but he was not interested in using it, and I've since passed it on. He read some of SAA...I'm not sure if he read all of it. Not sure if he'd be interested in talking to Dr. H. He was not interested in participating MB coaching when I did it. I know he at least listened to the first time I was on the radio show, because he had recorded it and I found the recording.

LL, completely agree with the LB$ assessment. By never going into a Plan B, I didn't protect my LB$. I know theoretically it can be rebuilt, but realistically am not sure it will happen.

I know you've got to be frustrated with me, NG... I am sure a lot of posters here are, since I have steadfastly refused to follow advice to just move on with my life.

I think if he and I could get help - if he would agree to getting help - I think that would be the only way we could turn this thing around. I just don't think "slow" on our own is going to cut it...and I'm not sure how to encourage him to get help, since all my past efforts to get him interested in MB fell flat. But yeah, at this point for me, my girls are my biggest motivation, and I think that while broken may not really miss me, per se, he misses the "family." In 7 years our oldest will be off to college, with the youngest 2 years behind her, so these years are just flying by, and we'll never get them back.

On another note, I have encouraged my SIL (broken's sister) to come here...I'm not sure she will, but maybe she will seek out the forums. Her husband is having an affair. I talked with her for a long time yesterday about killing the affair and exposure, and the concept of exposure scares her - she's afraid he will lose his job (it's a workplace affair) and therefore his income. Unfortunately he doesn't have a lot of family close by to really put pressure on him, and he's been able to turn most of their mutual friends against her bc he's had a chance to spin the story and make her out to be the crazy one.

She is hurting so much and I want to help, but at the same time it makes me think about how much I hurt broken, and when I think about how cruel her WH is being I can't help but think about how cruel I was to broken...It brings up a lot of feelings for me, and I'm sure it does for broken as well.

When a husband won't do that, though, a wife needs to try the last resort: separation. And she needs to try it sooner rather than later.

LifetimeLearner's post to you was excellent, wpg. Please listen to her closely. When marital recovery is not going on, what is going on is punishment.

Enduring punishment will not make your husband decide to get help to save the marriage.

Separation might.

Nothing else will.

wpg, why do you think things will work out better for you if you ignore Dr. Harley's advice?

By the way, I heard Dr. Harley address exactly this situation on the radio not long ago:

August 8, 2013:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=05141
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=05142
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=05143

I most certainly am NOT frustrated with you, or your actions, Wulffie. I am however, extremely sad for you, as what should be the best times of your life are sliding by. And the wet blanket preventing your flourishing is the yes/no, maybe/maybe not, in/out, up/down, outlook that you maintain with broken.

For all practical purposes, you and broken are already in a state of separation, and have been since August 2012 (H moved out again 8/25/2012). The arrangements might not equal the protections of a Plan B, but they have no legitimacy to do so.

I'm not hearing from you the desire of finding a new partner, kiddo, so the opportunity presents itself to treat this separation as the same as a divorce. The "commitment" you should try to make is to yourself, to eliminate examining the possibility of reconciliation with broken - mentally divorce his life from your own.

If Judge NG were to bring down his gavel TODAY, kiddo, what actions (absent hitting the newly-single bars in your area!) would you take TOMORROW, that are not currently being taken? Refinance? House sale? Do one of them and start living your unmarried, yet undivorced, life.

Your SIL has no one better qualified or closer to her then you to be her coach through this mess. You know MB with the best of them. And more important you are a Fww. Notice the importance placed on the first letter.

WPG,

It is always comforting to see your posts, particularly your post on 9/1. I felt like the works your were using and thoughts you were sharing were mine...made me cry.

As I stumbled around in the darkness, lost, hurt and afraid. I could see a light off in the distance. I would stumble and fall, sometimes I would just brush myself off, take a breath and walk slower so I wouldn't trip again. And other times I would stumble and the pain was so great that all I wanted to do was just lay there and die. As I laid there in pain, I could hear a voice coming from the light that gave me the strength to get up and keep going. As I got closer to the light the pain had started to go away, but I was still afraid. But there was something about the voice that started to take the fear away. As I emerged out of the darkness and into the light, it was you my Love. You had guided me Home. Thank you wulffpack_girl for helping me out of that darkness. You not only saved us, but you saved me all those years ago.

And thank you to each and everyone of you who posted, you helped save us too and I will always be eternally grateful.

Wow…long time, no post…yes, it is true, broken and I are together and somewhat reconciled. I’ll catch readers up briefly:

broken had moved out on three separate occasions. The last time, he spent about a year in his own apartment. If you’ve read the last few pages of the thread, you know this is about the time that the advice I was getting was that I needed to move on, so I took several steps in that direction. I opened my own bank account so that I didn’t spend any of broken’s money and I refinanced the house in my name only. When his lease was up, he did not renew but instead asked to come home. This was towards the end of 2014. Since then, we’ve been together – I can’t say that things were always great, more like we fell into our pre-A patterns. Sadly I had spent so much effort on a very long and protracted version of Plan A that I was exhausted, and needed broken to start filling my LB$, but he hadn’t spent time learning the MB program. We’ve had a number of other stressors to hit us in the last few years, including a near-death experience for me which resulted in a life-altering new diagnosis, hospitalization and surgery for broken the following year, our oldest child leaving the nest, and our youngest coming out as transgender.

We both changed jobs after my last post; however, through those strange twists that life throws, I accepted an upper-level position at the same agency I worked with during the A, and now broken is back at the same workplace he was at during the A. My job requires occasional travel, although I try to keep overnights to a minimum. My job is also extremely stressful, and a bad supervisor, combined with my health issues and our youngest’s issues led to panic attacks which sent me to individual therapy. Incidentally, this has helped me to process the guilt and regret I felt from the A and the damage I did to our M. We sadly did not meet the MB definition of a “successful” M, but, for the most part, I was content with broken and maybe afraid to “rock the boat.” He had never expressed interest in MB or really any external marital help after coming home.

Up until about a couple of months ago. With COVID travel restrictions on my work easing, I suddenly had several trips lined up. I was not maintaining good separation between my work life and home life and quite honestly, was not prioritizing our M. I was rejecting broken’s efforts at SF, partly due to stress and exhaustion, but if I am honest, my LB$ had gotten really low. This set up a similar pattern of interaction between the two of us as to when the A occurred in 2009, and broken was triggered by this. Fortunately, he told me this instead of withdrawing, so now that it is out in the open we have been talking – a lot – and he is willing to implement MB principles into our M.

Here is where we need help. I hesitated to post in this thread because part of the issue is truly MB 101 – we started with “Fall in Love, Stay in Love” as I happened to have the book on my Kindle, and we are both reading a chapter a week, and scheduling time to discuss. However, the other part of this issue is that he is still struggling with painful memories of the A and trickle truth from 11-12 years ago. Many of our conversations tend to end up focusing on the A. I don’t have a lot of concrete memories of that time anymore and all the evidence has been destroyed (save for the polygraph report and I still have a copy of the kids’ DNA test results somewhere). I feel like focusing on the A is causing each of us to take huge hits to the LB$ we have for each other, but as the FWS, I don’t want to presume to dictate what broken needs to heal. My worry is that I am not enough to help him with the pain and the old memories; he thinks that he still has the pain and old memories because rather than healing, he ran away. Should we have started with another book? broken had suggested SAA, but I believe we are beyond that one.

Let me also say that I am 100% committed to broken and our M. I never strayed again, even while we were separated. Although I made matters worse by giving him trickle truth after he initially discovered the A and confronted me, he did get the full truth, but still struggles with doubts. The doubts and the painful memories are why I hesitated to post this in MB 101 and feel like we still belong "In Recovery." This wasn't the first time he has felt the pain since we reconciled, but this time he made it into conflict rather than retreating into withdrawal.

Finally, like broken said, I am so grateful to the posters who took time and energy to help us, because eventually we found our way back to each other. We both want to have a happy, romantic, and fulfilling M and we know that it is possible thanks to MB and the folks here. I know many of the “old heads” from back in the day don’t appear to be active anymore, but I hope that someone more experienced than us can help us truly get the M we both deserve.

broken, I love you.

Something seems to have happened to the forum since the traffic reduced. It's my opinion that we are getting more and more very hard cases, where one spouse has been doing their best for years, and the other isn't responding.

Certainly my constant refrain these days is for posters to write to Dr Harley. I think that several posters here, including you and your husband, have problems that need Dr Harley's skill. They are definitely beyond any skill that I've ever had.

From what I can see, your marriage consists of two people who both want to use Dr Harley's help, but can't do it by themselves. For me, that screams out "online coaching". This is the year-long course where you complete weekly exercises, overseen by Dr Harley. It's quite expensive, at about $1000 for the course - but with two willing spouses, the results are priceless.

If you can't stretch to that, write to Dr Harley at the radio show. See whether you can both go on the show. Dr Harley will email with you to answer any follow-up questions for as long as you like, but in my view, the online coaching would work wonders for you.

The biggest problem I see in your post is that the affair keeps coming up in conversation. This is obviously making conversation very unpleasant for both of you. He's bringing the sad and devastating past into the present, and you are having to hear it all over again. You know that Dr. Harley says the affair must never be brought up again.

Then you both need to make your marriage much better. He needs to be meeting your most important intimate emotional needs and you need to be meeting his. You will be ready to meet his need for SF when you are in love with him and feel safe. But I imagine that you already know all of this.

There's a letter that I bet BrainHurts can find for you that discusses the requirement for a betrayed spouse to never bring up the affair again and for the marriage to be better and safe than ever. It takes both spouses 100% to accomplish a great marriage. He will never get past the affair if it keeps being a part of his present.

I think I can understand what your husband is going through. I have never forgotten my husband's affairs, nor have I ever forgotten how poorly he treated me though those times. It was terrible. And, yes, I do still occasionally think about it. It's like never forgetting a cancer diagnosis or the birth of a baby. These are big deals in a person's life. But we never discuss those times. He can never change that past and he feels awful about what he did. So what's the point of dragging it all back into our present? It's destructive to happiness and to a great marriage.

I suggest trying to get him on board with meeting the mutual ENs, having dates, and, if/when he brings up the affair, you must be able to state firmly that you will not allow conversations about it. Period. My husband had to do this numerous times. I had agreed not to ever bring it up again, but then I would. So I told him that he should tell me in a kind way that he didn't want to discuss the mistakes of the past.

I agree with the others. Definitely write Dr. Harley.

Have you read Coping with Infidelity Resentment Part 4

In it a husband uses the wife’s affair as punishment and Dr. Harley tells her to say:

I suggest that she look him right in the eye and say to him, "Listen Buster, do you love me? Do you want me to love you? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me? If the answers to any of those questions is 'yes' you sure are going about it the wrong way. You are not doing things that I admire, you're doing things that I find disgusting!"