And you don't HAVE to do anything. But if you want to have a marriage that is affair free and is happy and passionate, there is no other way.

I will say that our marriage is very passionate right now.

It won't be "passionate" if you have a traveling job. In order to have a romantic, passionate marriage that is free from affairs, you have to be together every day meeting each other's emotional needs.

It takes 15 hours of undivided attention per week to SUSTAIN romantic love. It takes 20-25 to create romantic love. I assure you your wife was not in love with you when she had her affair. And a huge part of the reason is because you were gone.

I really don't like having to be a babysitter of a grown person who can make their own choices in life. If that person truly loves me than I should have no worries but yet I do. It happened and that really plays with my head. If a person can fall out of love with someone so easily I have to wonder if I want to be with anyone, I am going to give this everything I have and I will stay home for sometime and see how this all plays out, if she loves me she will show me if not she will still show me. I cannot give up my rig job as I don't know how this will end up although I am feeling that we will make it but if we don't than I will continue to to work the rig making big money and just live an awesome life possibly with another or just stay alone.or I will have an awesome life with my beautiful wife.

That's fine. You don't have to do anything. You are an adult. Your argument is not with me, but with reality. I am just telling you that you won't ever have a marriage unless you find a job where you are home every night.

It doesn't matter who you are married to, if you keep that job you will destroy your marriage because you and your wife will fall out of love.

So if you stay home for a while and work on the marriage, all that will be lost if you go back to your traveling job.

You might want to check out this thread and listen to Dr Harley's radio clips. I know you want to believe you are different, but I would point out that you already know this is not true. Affairs are epidemic in marriages where one spouse travels. You have proven that statistic true. Separations lead to affairs.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=165049&Number=2563215#Post2563215

If it doesn't work out, I think you are going to want to be around more often for your daughter. If her parents' marriage ends in divorce she is going to seriously need you. If your wife goes back to her affair or into another, your daughter is going to ULTRA SERIOUSLY NEED YOU, her FATHER.

I did a lot of thinking about your alternatives the other night. It really does suck to feel you have to give up your job because of your wife's affair. I know the fair thing is that you should not have to give anything up. But the fact is you have a daughter depending on you. The best possible outcome for her is that her parents stay married and in love with each other for life. If her mother does not stay faithful, then the best possible outcome for her is to live with her father, not her wayward mother.

For your daughter, I think you really need to start looking at other career options. I think this would have been a good idea even if your wife had not had an affair.

RNR,

You are thinking about this the wrong way. Pretending you are sacrificing.

You shouldn't have to give up your job because of something she did. That being she had an affair. You should give it up because having it means you haven't been the H your W needs you to be. Ask any woman if they'd be willing to sign up for a M where they would see their H 1/4 of their married life. See what kind of response you'd get. I'm quite certain you'd get an almost unanimous NO.

If you are seriously OK with being alone the rest of your life that is your choice and no one will argue that. But if you believe you want to have a happy marriage and be a good H who meets his W's needs you will have to make some decisions on how you are going to do that. Being together for quality time once out of 3 or 4 weeks won't cut it ... no matter who your W is.

I�m sorry your W is refusing to come here anymore. I�m not surprised though. It�s hard to get hammered with 2x4s and be able to stand up and take it. This program is EXACTLY what you two need. For her to say it isn't right for you is simply having a closed mind. What you are doing today isn't working. To be unwilling to realize that and give this program a try could be the end of your M.

You are still here and that is great. I hope you are open to 2x4s. You like all people who come here looking for a solution get their fair share.

One of the key things we learn here at MB is that love isn't something that just happens. Love follows actions. You love someone because they meet your needs. It isn't a switch you turn on. It has conditions. It is a button that a spouse will push each and every day that registers in their partner�s head the feelings of love.

You say she fell out of love with you so easily � really? Do you really believe it was easy for her? That�s a big old disrespectful judgment. I�m not going to sit her e and defend what she did. We all know what she did was the most hurtful thing a human being could do to another. But I do want you to realize the disintegration of your M wasn�t her having the affair. It was the result of things prior to it that did that. That happened long before she did what she did.

You weren�t there to meet her needs, to push her button to remind her of your love. Someone else stepped in to push it for you.

You say you love your W but being able to show that love so that she feels it has conditions.

Keep reading. It will do you a world of good if you ever get to understand why marriages fail and why affairs happen. Dr Harley�s plan works.

Your marriage can survive on a lower budget but it can't survive with its patriarch gone all the time. Many of men made the financial over emotional presence mistake. Don't fall into that category, I don't condone your WWs actions but there are reasons for affairs not excuses. One reason was that you were gone all the time. Eliminate it now.

Could someone please explain "the fog" to me? Is someone who is still in this "fog" still considered to be in the A? I noticed my wife looking through a thread called "getting through the fog". Not sure how I should take this?

What are Plan A and Plan B

"The fog" is a term Dr. Harley uses to describe the state of a person's brain during an affair. An affair is literally an addiction to a person. In many ways it is the same as an addiction to heroin or alcohol! And just as an addict will say or do all kinds of things that don't make sense to get their fix, an affairee will often express many irrational thoughts during their addiction. For example, a man may have fallen in love with a coworker who weighs a lot more than his wife, is older, and doesn't look anywhere near as good as his wife, but in his fogged out state he may babble incessantly about how beautiful she is and how his wife "let herself go." To most outside observers he sounds ludicrous, but in his foggy state he thinks he makes perfect sense.

As far as your wife reading threads, I would not put any interpretation on that. She might be learning something useful for recovery, she might be thinking things over, or she might hate everybody here and be looking for ways to try to argue what we have to say here. You can't read her mind and it would be disrespectful to try.

I strongly encourage you to take yourself through a course of self-education around here:

Dr. Harley's video about infidelity:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi1001_infidelity0.html

Dr. Harley's Q&A columns about surviving an affair:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/mb2.cfm?recno=4&sublink=33

Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/mb3.cfm?recno=3

Marriage Builders Radio:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/mb3.cfm?recno=12

Everything I have linked is given away by Dr. Harley for free and has saved hundreds if not thousands of marriages.

In alot of ways my marriage has never been better. It's like when we first meet but I still can't find it in me to trust anything. She says that everything is over and I am the only one but I just can't believe it, what do I do?

She has been untrustworthy, you don't have to trust her yet. My WH has been in NC for over a year and I still don't trust him. But as I find time going on and he is being transparent and open with me, I able to find that trust building back up. I will never naively trust him again but I am able to "relax" more as time goes on.

A lack of trust is a good thing because it leads you to take better care of your marriage. Now you will keep a closer watch on your marriage hopefully and not rely on blind trust.

Has she become fully transparent to you? Has she given you access to every part of her life? Has she blocked facebook?
If everything is open and transparent, you don't need trust.

I don't know for sure. She says she has but there's no way to tell for certain?

Trust is an emotion. You can't force yourself to feel it. You have to create the right psychological environment to bring it about. The way to do that is with evidence: trust (the emotion) is built over time when repeated evidence adds up to trust being a reasonable conclusion for your emotions.

The Marriage Builders program achieves trust when it is followed. Eventually, people who follow these principles will feel the feeling of trust.

Trust is a natural feeling with a specific cause. If you check up on your spouse until you feel bored about it, you will feel trust. If you would like to have trust in your marriage, this is the way to create it. Trying to pretend you feel it when you don't is a recipe for disaster. Dr. Harley is a clinical psychologist who knows a thing or two about feelings, and he knows you can't just make yourself feel a certain way. Your spouse's behavior will have to cause your feelings.

Here is what I once posted to a wayward husband who was disappointed that his betrayed wife did not yet trust him:


If your wife is willing to act in certain ways and is consistent about it, then in Dr. Harley's experience, you will eventually feel trust.

It's up to your wife to make you feel trust, not you.

By the way, if you keep spending nights apart, then according to Dr. Harley, you will never feel trust.