Your defensive status doesn't coexist with wanting to get help.

You have folks here who have used this material for 10+ years, and you are trying to tell them they don't know what they are talking about.

Do you want help, or do you simply want to defend the status quo?

No one is saying you are a bad person.

You said you have no love in your marriage.

Do you want love in your marriage? If yes, then stop being defensive and start being the good person you keep trying to convince us you are. Listen to the advice, follow it, and watch your marriage get better.

Or continue down the path you are on, and things will continue on the progression you've see to date.

And he shouldn't trust you either.

Please, stop putting this all on your husband. You have played a major role in guiding your marriage to where it is today.

You have to own your part, do your work, as you cannot do the work for any other person. You have enough marriage damaging behaviors to address before looking across the street at what your husband is or isn't doing.

If you could get him here, folks can address his marriage destroying behaviors as well.

But if he's not here, then the only behaviors we can critique and advise are yours.

I don't understand how you can not know what to do about it. We've posted what to do about it. Just end the friendship. People do this all the time if they want to have a good marriage, so it is perfectly realistic.

Did you get my link about Dr. Harley's radio show? I strongly suggest you check that out. You can hear real life examples of people putting these principles into practice.

Here is some vital reading for you:

How do Affairs Begin?

Anatomy of Adultery

chapter 13 of His Needs, Her Needs

And a video (I may have already posted this):

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi1001_infidelity0.html

How come everybody knows about your husband's fault but not yours?

What's the appropriate thing for a Christian to do?

http://biblehub.com/james/5-16.htm

You know, I would strongly encourage you to give up alcohol in your life. As you can see it has led to a lot of problems.

I know Christians debate whether or not alcohol is acceptable. But one thing is clear from what God says: if we are not sure that something is acceptable to God, we should abstain from it until we are sure:

http://biblehub.com/romans/14-23.htm

I would apply this not only to alcohol.

If you know something is AGAINST GOD'S WILL, how can you as a Christian justify continuing to do it? Would you say the same thing about murder or theft?

Having an opposite sex best friend is just as clearly wrong as divorce, murder, and theft. And it needs to be given up like any other sin. It's not different just because it's hard for you.

I have heard Dr. Harley cover your exact situation on the radio show before, where a wife recognized that a friendship was a problem but her husband wanted her to continue it, and Dr. Harley told her to not continue the friendship.

What are you supposed to do? THAT! End the friendship.

Just do it, instead of posting on the internet perpetually about it.

Tell everybody that, then. Tell the man's wife that. She deserves to know what he has done, and with who.

That was said clearly about twenty times.

YES, Dr. Harley says that his program doesn't work if you only follow part of it. You are leaving out at least one very significant part.

YES, you will not be able to restore feelings in your marriage as long as you continue to see this man. Dr. Harley says that even if the relationship is appropriate you will not be able to do that.

"Working on it" is code for "doing nothing."

I know this, because when I came here and learned that my angry outbursts were a severe problem for our marriage, I spent a year "working on it" and saying I was "working on it," and basically nothing changed.

Finally I learned what to DO, and when I DID it, things changed and our marriage got better.

So, I advise you to stop working on quitting drinking!

This is a big part of why I felt this program would help us. The problem isn't so much this one man, who may not even feel the same way, but ME. I recognize that I have boundary issues. This is why I say that I am vulnerable, especially as my husband does not have a history of meeting those needs. The reason why I know this is because my feelings can jump easily from one person to the next - basically to whomever is satisfying those needs.

When I was at the other forum, I got too close to another member; he recognized it and stopped communicating with me (we were talking in private messages - nothing inappropriate as he was actually trying to help me). In fact, he doesn't even visit the forum anymore. I feel bad about that because it was never my intention, but it did open my eyes to an obvious flaw that I have.

My husband is suppose to meet those needs, but he doesn't know how. All of my hope was in this program to try and bring us closer together. I still don't see the value in exposure to my kids and others for something my husband and I have dealt with and have moved on from. No contact with our friend? Yes, I see the value in that and I have already made every effort to avoid him since this all started.

My husband could be any guy on the street. I have absolutely no connection to him except through our children. And to make matters worse, we have a lifetime of hurt and resentments built up between us. This all seems like a shot in the dark. I will ask my therapist her opinion on the matter when I see her tomorrow night.

You have committed adultery with a family friend, whom you insist on keeping in contact with.

Reworded; you are still in constant contact with your affair partner.



You are right - it is no use helping you until you end your affair. It's active, and you are kicking and screaming about ending it.


"BUT, BUT, BUT... HE'S 'JUST A FRIEND!'"

Said every cheating wife, ever.

I get that you all are saying to fix the cheating first and work on the marriage next. I feel like the boundary issue is a huge problem for me and it is one that I am working on in individual counseling, but also, the habit of going outside of my marriage to get attention is a symptom of my bad relationship with my husband.

I'm almost positive my perspective won't fly here, but I am sharing it anyway. I still think it would be helpful for my husband and I to explore each other's emotional needs and love busters. Because if I was still in an "active" affair, why would it be so easy for me to become attached to another person (the guy in the other forum)?

I am also dealing with this in counseling. It's another area of my life that I try to control.

You can do better, and we can help you do that. Why are you so hateful to people trying to help you and your husband?

No, you're not.

Don't blame your poor boundaries on your bad marriage.

Of course you do. Because sweeping the BIG problem under the rug makes things easier on YOU.

It's easy for you because you have PISS-POOR BOUNDARIES.

So, you need better boundaries. Start with NO CONTACT FOR LIFE.

We know. Get better ones.

GET BETTER BOUNDARIES.
Start with NO CONTACT FOR LIFE.



It was completely inappropriate for you to be private messaging anyone of the opposite sex.
GET BETTER BOUNDARIES.

You haven't dealt with SQUAT.

No you haven't. You are still in contact.
What are you going to do about YOUR PISS-POOR BOUNDARIES?

Counseling won't help you with your bad boundaries. It's a complete distraction and waste of time and an excuse for not doing what needs to be done.

You go NC with people you have crossed the line with and you close your LB$ to members of the opposite sex. It's pretty simple, but waywards always try to make it more complicated because you don't want to do what needs to be done.

Why are you here if you do not want to implement MB in your M?

You probably don't realize it, but you are subtly engaging in blame-shifting here. It is so subtle you probably don't realize it.

Yes, your husband has not met your emotional needs. I guarantee you we on this forum all know what that is like. We have all been there. Some of us are still there.

But when my needs went unmet, I did not go make friends with women. I took extraordinary precautions to avoid creating such a relationship. These precautions are what some people call "boundaries." Dr. Harley and his wife Joyce have been happily married for fifty years. Their spark of love has never gone out. Neither one of them has ever had an affair. But they both observe these precautions. One of those precautions is: no friends of the opposite sex. It's just a good rule to live by.

This is why Surviving an Affair is the right book for you, before His Needs Her Needs. Dr. Harley specifically says on the radio that SAA is designed to make it clear that unmet needs are not the cause of extramarital relationships, and that whether your needs are met or not, you FIRST need to establish extraordinary precautions, before getting down to the HNHN need-meeting part of the program.