Well, than how should I continue to communicate with her? All she says, every time, is that "her mind is made up" and that "nothing will change that."
I'm growing so weary of telling her the same thing over and over, like a broken record. Should I send her a text every day, letting her know I love her? At this point, I feel like I should tell her that we can talk any time she wants to, if it is about our marriage and rebuilding it, but other than that, I really don't want to continue any communication.

I feel like she's leading me on, like she's being "friendly" to try and justify the terrible things she is still doing to herself, and to try and justify her decision to leave and forsake her marriage without giving any effort to fix it.

Plan A <~~~ Try to keep her stuff around so she has to keep stopping by.
Plan B <~~~ Get all of her stuff away from you ASAP.

Yes. How do I do plan A with her out of the house, and more or less not speaking to me on any real level? Just "do things to better myself"? What good will that do when she's not around to see it? I am planning to start exercising more, trying to eat more healthy, but I'm not fat or unattractive by any means... and that kinda stuff never mattered to her. The OM is scrawny and not good looking. She left because of emotional needs I was failing to meet. It's kinda hard to work on meeting her emotional needs when she won't allow me to, and when she has already made up in her mind that her marriage is over and not worth working on.

MC-

You views on M, forginess and the postion your are currenty taking are similar to most of us pre-MB education.

Dr Harley has been saving marriages for over 40 years. He is one of the leading experts in the world on SAVING marriages.

I would encourage you to get SAA today, listen to the radio program daily. It is possible that your viewpoints could change.

All is not lost with your situation. Educating yourself on how A's start, end and how to R may detour your current path.

Your wife is in the A Fog. Her reactions are A-Typical and standard wayward speak.

My FWW and I are about 15mo's into R after her 1.5yr A. R is possible.

She is cake-eating because that's what waywards do.
Plan A means while she is a cake-eater, you try to kill the affair at the same time make love bank deposits.

Of course she is leading you on. She is not going to make sense while she is a wayward.

Well it is too late for that, because she said she's coming on monday to get all the rest of her stuff. I initially tried to delay her taking it all- like I said, she moved out 2 weeks ago, and still has a lot of stuff here. But her coming and going was causing me so much pain that I felt I had to tell her, more or less, if she wants to leave, than leave, don't drag it out. I guess that was a mistake looking back, but there's nothing I can do to change that now

Agree with this, in part.
She had an affair because she allowed OM to meet her needs.


If you want us to be helpful, tell us what 2 or 3 ENs you previously failed to meet to her satisfaction.
Thanks.

I understand.
The underlying message I am receiving from you is that you are not able to do a proper Plan A due to the severe pain you are experiencing.
Is this correct?

And what would she say the needs you were not meeting would be?


What is she getting from OM that she wasn't getting from you?

Are you sleeping sufficiently?
Are you crying a lot?
Have you experienced emotional outbursts such as road rage or other fits of anger towards strangers?

How mentally stable do you feel most days?

I'm not entirely sure. She was never clear with me about it during our marriage. We read 'His needs, her needs' during our pre-marital counseling, so I'm familiar with the love bank, how affairs start, why they start, etc.

I guess we both got to the point where she wasn't meeting my needs for physical affection, and I wasn't meeting her needs for emotional affection.

I guess I missed the boat, because I didn't tell her how special she was every day, etc. I guess I figured (wrongly) that not saying anything mean was good enough. I did tell her I loved her each and every day, asked her how her day was, etc. But TBH, she didn't really make an attempt to start meaningful conversation with me, or tell me anything was wrong, or that I wasn't meeting her needs.

Not crying a lot. I did for a small period of about 5-7 days following the initial discovery of the affair, but not really since then. I haven't experienced too much rage/outbursts. My dad was a very angry person when I was young, and I more or less learned and conditioned myself not to allow myself to be controlled by anger and rage.

I have been getting to sleep most nights ok enough. I have always had issues with sleep, but some melatonin (and sometimes a benadryl) help.

I feel fairly mentally stable. I know regardless of what happens, I'll be OK. I know this won't last forever (the bad feelings, etc), and I have come to grips that I am very powerless in this situation. Every day is tough, and it's not sunshine and rainbows, but I don't wake up hating myself or hating the world every day or anything like that. I just try to be truthful to myself... not to lie to myself and feel like "everything is ruined, life's not worth living" or vice versa like "everything's OK, I'll just live like this never happened"

Sounds like she's trying to convince herself.

Anyway, that's pretty typical, and you can Plan A right through that.

Step one: see your regular doctor and ask him to prescribe an antidepressant for you. Otherwise, you will be unable to fight this.

Step two: start listening to Dr. Harley's radio show DAILY. Get educated about more marriages than just yours and how other people came out of exactly this and recovered.

Please tell us more about this. It is unusual. Most marriages start with a honeymoon period, but yours does not seem to have lasted very long, if it existed at all. Most people are so happy and in love when they first marry that meeting their spouse's ENs comes easily - in fact, we go above and beyond.

You mentioned "physical affection" and "emotional afection". I'm afraid I don't know what "emotional affection" means. Can you describe the atmosphere in your marriage in more everyday terms?

Thanks for the complete response. This really helps.

You are only "powerless" when it comes to controlling the outcome.
You are not "powerless" when it comes to controlling yourself, your words, your attitude, and (yes) your mood.

Communication screw up example:

You say: "Come get all your stuff all at one time" <~~~ What you mean ~~~> "It causes me great pain to see you move away from me."

What your WW hears ~~~> "You are not special to me. Get out."

Can you now see how this harms your Plan A CARROT efforts?

We couldn't afford an actual honeymoon, so we planned to take one on our one year anni. (Obv. didn't make it). We moved to TN pretty much directly after our wedding, and I went to work. I'm an RN (a nurse), so I work 3 days on, 4 off. I work 12 hour days, so those days we didn't get to see each other a whole lot, but again, only 3 days a week. She ended up taking a "part time job" which turned into more or less full time. This complicated things, because I felt she placed her job before her marriage on multiple occasions. I expressed how this bothered me, without being negative about it or trying to blame her or anything. She made no changes. We eventually got to where we couldn't talk about her job, because it would end up with her immediately getting defensive and more or less turning it into a fight. I know, I know, it was a mistake to let it get to that point.

A typical day off, we'd try and do something together. Go shooting, off roading, or watch TV together or maybe play some games together. Something like that.
At first, things were very good. She tried hard to meet my needs, and I tried hard to meet hers. She told me her biggest need was for "affection". She never really defined "affection," outside of giving her hugs, holding her hand, etc.

My biggest need was for intimacy, mostly, sexual intimacy. This was a need she never really met, and it eventually became something we also couldn't talk about without her getting up in arms and fighting. I know it was a mistake to back down from it and not try and seek out help regarding this issue.

For the last ~3-4 months, we just stopped meeting each others needs. Again, I realize this was a mistake. We got to a point where we seemed like "roomates". I still would bring her flowers every now and again as a nice surprise, and I'd try to show her more affection, like hugs, and etc. but it got to be very, very hard as she became colder and colder; and showed me little to no affection back. It was hard to keep "making deposits" into her love bank while she was draining mine...

I guess in hindsight, I know why she got more and more distant and cold, and didn't respond to the affections I was trying to show her; because she had already begun to get it elsewhere, with the OM, and didn't need it anymore from me.

I sure do. Since the damage is already done, what do you suggest I do now regarding that? I know I should apologize for it. I kinda already have. I also already expressed to her that it hurts me every time she comes and I have to watch her move more and more away. She knows that's why I said it. Should I just let that lie at this point and move on, and try and show her more love and kindness, and if so, how?

Affairs are incredibly painful, but as you are a man, if you want to outlast this affair and stand a chance of getting your marriage back, you have to be a lot tougher than that. It would indeed have been painful to have been there while she came and went with her stuff, but men fighting affairs have to...man up.

According to Dr Harley, it is a good response for women to quickly pack a WH's stuff and leave it outside and have nothing more to do with a H until the affair ends, but a man needs to show fortitude and kindness for a long time. You did not need to help her to move, but packing up her stuff because seeing her is painful is not fighting for her - and neither is moving away because you are lonely.

Yes.


At the same time you demonstrate your commitment to your vows.
You must demonstrate that you are a good choice for her to make.


Previously, you mentioned flowers as a sign of affection. So, I will use this as an example. What if WW thinks flowers are pretty, but getting them from you is not a high value item on her affection meter? You need to figure out what makes more love bank deposits when it comes to affection.

For many women, they are attracted to a man who listens to her. To many women, THIS is what is a high-value target on the affection meter. Intimate conversation.

What say you?