What were the conditions that allowed the A to occur? Was it your computer? DR Harley has made recommendations for people to give up computers, smart phones etc. to R.
Eliminate ALL the conditions that made the A possible.
What makes you feel safe? Make a list and impliment them.
What was he getting outside of the relationship that he wasn't getting from you? Have you addressed these things?
Are you spending 15hrs/wk UA meeting each others most important EN's to restore and maintain romantic love?
MB is not a cafeteria plan for it to work. It is all or nothing if you want to have a great M.
What were the conditions that allowed the A to occur? Was it your computer? DR Harley has made recommendations for people to give up computers, smart phones etc. to R.
Eliminate ALL the conditions that made the A possible.
What makes you feel safe? Make a list and impliment them.
What was he getting outside of the relationship that he wasn't getting from you? Have you addressed these things?
Are you spending 15hrs/wk UA meeting each others most important EN's to restore and maintain romantic love?
MB is not a cafeteria plan for it to work. It is all or nothing if you want to have a great M.
[/quote]
Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. I have listened to the radio clips, which I found very helpful, and tried to find some more info on exposure so I can understand the reason for it because I haven't found it in SAA yet. What I found in an article on this website is this:
"Another exception to the Policy of Joint Agreement when confronting infidelity is what I've called, "exposure." I highly recommend that while in plan A you tell your friends, family, the lover's spouse, your pastor, and possibly your wayward spouse's employer that your spouse is having an affair. It's a very controversial recommendation, and a clear violation of the Policy of Joint Agreement. But I've found exposure to be one of the most effective ways to end an affair quickly while in plan A."
also:
"An unfaithful spouse almost always considers such exposure to be a worse act of betrayal than their affair itself. But the alternative, helping the unfaithful spouse to keep the affair a secret, is enabling the addiction, prolonging the agony."
It looks to me like Dr Harley recommends exposure as an aid to help end the affair when in plan A, an aid to end the A quickly. Also, Mrs Harley says on one of the radio clips (about the H having EA) that the caller has only told their parents and a friend and she recommends for her to also tell their children. Mrs Harley does not say to the caller to tell ALL their friends and extended family.
When I think of exposing my H EA to all our friends and family, I don't want the reason to be to shame him which I think would be unhelpful. Since he has already stopped any contact with the OW, it would not serve the above stated reason to help end the A. My H hasn't had any difficulty since contact ended. He says he hasn't missed her at all and doesn't think of her. (Already before the NC in his last email he apologized to the OW for not writing since her last visit, which was 10 weeks before that email. In her last 2 visits she hadn't come across that well (I witnessed it) and I think he was losing interest in her.) So I'm not worried that he is still in contact with her. The risk wouldn't be worth the gain for him I think as our relationship is so much better now. (He's gone from SF once a month to daily and much better than before. I doubt he'd risk that.)
Dr Harley says in the radio clip that he recommends exposure because it's being honest. I can see that as a good reason to let our friends and family know. I can see that pretending to others that all is well when it is not, is not honest and it would explain to them why we are recommending marriagebuilders to them (which we have). It will also make it easier for me to explain to them why we have changed our minds about having opp sex friends as most of them still think it's ok. So now that I can see a good purpose for exposure, I am happier about it.
The conditions that allowed the A to develop were several. I didn't understand that "trying to improve my H" is disrespectful and would frequently criticize my H's expressions in his emails to his children when I felt the way he'd written it could offend them. My intentions were good but misguided and all it did was make my H write his emails to them from work. I think that's part of the reason he got into writing more and more emails from work, where I wouldn't see the content. He only told me this recently though, when we were reading Dr Harley's books and working through things. Also, he's always liked responding to letters immediately so when he had a minute after work, it was natural for him to write an answer straight after getting an email. In his former job it was normal for him to stay on at work and do preps. So that is how it started. It became a habit. He could have had the correspondence with the 2nd OW out in the open because he kept all her emails in his email programme anyway, where I could have read them anytime and there was nothing in them I couldn't have read.
Another condition was that I felt neglected and was often in withdrawal, leading my own life looking after the kids and homeschooling my youngest. I still loved my H but wasn't in love. Somewhat disillusioned. So I wasn't interested in what he was doing. I feel ashamed now that I didn't even read his story that got 3rd prize in a competition until now. Because my love for him was low, it didn't bother me that much that he had these other female friendships. I knew he corresponded with them as the occasional email from the OW came into our family inbox. The 2nd OW's contact I thought was only via FB but I never checked his FB page because I wasn't interested. ( I knew his password and could've checked. He sometimes showed us photos of the 2nd OW's outdoor trips). Now I have learned that it is important for me to show interest in my H work and his interests, even if I don't find them as interesting. He's doing a different work now and the work computers are monitored by the employer, so there is little chance he'd use it for private correspondence. Also, I know his password and can log in to his work email from home here, which I do regularly now.
For a while both my H and I couldn't figure out what emotional needs of his were being met by the OW but after listening to the radio clips I now have a better idea. One of the callers asks about the difference between attraction and being in love. Dr Harley explains that attraction is when emotional needs, e.g. conversation, admiration or attractiveness are being met. Attraction is not necessary love. 'In love' is incredible attraction and Dr Harley says you know if you are in love as you'll notice that you think about the other person all the time, get a "lift" when you hear their voice etc.
My H didn't think about the OW all the time. There were often months between emails. So I believe him when he says he wasn't in love with her but he felt attraction for her. His need for conversation was being met which is ironic because I complain all the time that he doesn't talk to me enough. But what he likes best is to express himself in writing and he opens up in writing much more easily than face to face. He would never have said some of the things in person that he wrote in the emails. So that is another condition and one that is now eliminated.
The one thing all his female friends have in common is an interest in the outdoors and their letters are full of stories of their trips and "adventures". The correspondence with the OW actually started because she sent him an article for a mag he was editing. She was also the ex-partner of a mutual friend which is how they met in person. Then she sent him writing assignments to critique. She expressed herself very openly in her stories ( a bit like in "Castaway") and I now know that it sends a different message to males when someone shares their private thoughts with them. It is so normal amongst women, but men don't really share their personal thoughts and feelings, so when a female shares her feelings and thoughts with them, it makes it very intimate for them. They misinterpret this openness with the female being interested in them.
Since my H knew that I would not like some of these stories that had some sexuell content, he asked her to only mail them to his work. Big mistake. The privacy of their emails then meant he could express himself more freely. Her life is full of outrages happenings so my H found her emails very interesting. So the attraction was the content of her stories, her sharing her private thoughts and feelings and her being into climbing which is what he loves too. (Thankfully I never allowed him to go climbing with her).
I also had some light depression at times and wasn't much fun to be around sometimes. There were his kids from the start who got priority, then our kids. Work came first and he would take on extra work (Indep. behaviour) and we would each babysit while doing separate activities. I have always been unhappy that we have no rec. activity in common that we both really love. That is our biggest challenge still.
Both of us have contributed to how things happened because we didn't know any better and I am so grateful to Dr Harley for his knowledge. I found it interesting to hear that Mrs Harley used exactly the same argument as my H when I was unhappy with his friendship with the OW. The radio clip was about a caller who asked how to keep business talks with opp sex coworkers on business and not personal. Mrs Harley raised the issue what if the spouse is against talking with the coworker at all, as some spouses are especially jealous, (meaning jealous even if there is no reason). That is exactly what my H said. That it was my insecurity that made me jealous even though there was no grounds for it. I think society as a whole has that attitude that it's the insecurity of a spouse that is the problem. But Dr Harley says it doesn't matter wether there is a reason for the jealousy or not. What matters is how the other spouse feels. "We should not do anything that makes our spouse unhappy." If I had known that earlier, I could have simply said to my H that his friendships made me unhappy and that would have been reason enough. Of course now we would not have opp sex friends at all. Thanks to Dr Harley we know now.
We are spending 15 h UA together now but we need to find more activities we both enjoy since that's in both of our top 5 needs and was the reason he finds other females attractive. My H says I fulfil his emotional needs and I can tell as he's been very happy unless I'm talking about the EA which I did far too much in the beginning. Dr Harley advises to put our resentment on hold but he didn't say how to. I found it incredibly difficult as it felt like I was rewarding my H with lots of SF, affection and taking an interest in everything he did. I had also lost 20kg (with the Dr McDougall Starch diet. 15kg in the last 2 years and 5 kgs in the first 2 weeks after Dday) and he finds me very attractive now, although that wasn't a big reason for the EA because I was overweight when he married me. Since my H told me about his temptation with the internet I have only left him alone twice briefly but we have now agreed he needs to not be in the house if I have to leave him again. I didn't know about his problem until he told me, so he was honest. I cycle with him to work and collect him again and that way I have met lots of his coworkers which are, unfortunately, mostly female. Yesterday I couldn't be home from my dd sports game before him, so he stayed on at work so he wasn't home alone. He tells me what he talks about with his coworkers and has learned to avoid private matters.
Another big contributing factor was that we had shifted his computer into our bedroom as my homeschooling interfered with his work (he was working from home then). The privacy there meant he could easily write his emails and with his domain name came a separate server which he used for his secret emails. The computer, a mac, is now back in the lounge since he's doing work away from home now. When he is not at work, he spends ALL his time around me. I even cycle to the dentist with him, although I don't always collect him. He always texts when he leaves there. He used to do outdoor trips without me but doesn't anymore. He's also willing to give up climbing but at the moment is still taking our daughter sometimes.
We have always had joined bank accounts and I see how he spends his money. We won't spend nights apart anymore. (We sometimes went to stay with our families.) So I think we cover what Dr Harley has outlined, except for "allow for technical accountability (the computer)". I will swap phones with him randomly, which he has agreed to and will keep his phone during the month that the OW usually comes here. He still has his separate work email on his computer but now that it is in the lounge, I check it every morning before he gets up ( I nearly always wake up way before him and I checked in the middle of the night after he first sent the NC email. I couldn't sleep well then anyway and was often up at night reading marriagebuilders).
I will follow your advise re keylogger. To start with I'll say that we wait with buying the keylogger until we have more money (which is true), then I will just not mention it again. He will not ask for it to be installed out of his own accord. So I will just instal it without saying anything. He knows I would find installing it by myself difficult, which is true. My younger dd has agreed to help me instal it and she's also loaning me the money so he can't see it coming out of our bank account. I tried to talk my older dd into buying it with her credit card but she doesn't want to be involved in the deception. By chance I discovered the other day that our debit credit card is not loaded onto his side of the log-in to the bank website so I'm planning to use that card to order it. I'm planning to have it send to my older dd address though, even though I haven't asked her. I can't think of any other way as I would never know when it arrives here from overseas and my H often checks the mail or the courier arrives before he leaves for work. I don't want to download it because I don't know if I can figure out how to disable the anti spy protection. My computer is in the lounge too but if he doesn't know that I've installed a keylogger into his computer, he won't use my one. I've been on a steep learning curve with technology in these last 3 months. I guess that's another good thing coming out of this.
I'm sorry this is such a novel. I've cut out things already but it's still way too long. Thank you for taking the time to read and for your advise. I wish I had figured out how to use this discussion board earlier. My marriage would be in shambles without Dr Harley. I can't wait for his new book to come out in Oct. If you can see anything else I need to do, please let me know. Much appreciated.
I can't imagine living with that as long as you have done so.
But we can help you with this. Dr Harley says that the #1 reason women are depressed is due to their marriages. IF that is the cause here, and I suspect it is, the program can turn this around. You seem to be very diligent and very thorough and that trait will help you immensely in using this program.