It is more likely that your bad relationship with your husband is a symptom of your going outside of your marriage.

Yes, yes, we get that! That is exactly the way most of our marriages were, and it was HORRIBLE, and we got educated with Dr. Harley's four decades of experience and used these methods to fix our marriages.

And we are telling you, the first step is to end the opposite sex friendship. Before HNHN.

Check out the radio show. Dr. Harley gives out an hour of free counseling every day, which you can listen to and learn from. You should consider being a caller and talk to him directly.

Dr. Harley, in his professional opinion, strongly disagrees with that kind of statement. He wrote the book Surviving an Affair to make it very clear that extramarital relationships are not a symptom of bad marriages and that there's something extra you must do besides just what he wrote in His Needs, Her Needs.

Think about it: in every affair, there is a betrayed spouse and an unfaithful spouse. It's a bad marriage for both. But usually, one spouse in that bad marriage is unfaithful, while the other is faithful. How can that be, if going outside the marriage is a symptom of bad relationships?

Also, Dr. Harley has said he has counseled people who WERE getting their emotional needs met in their marriage, but because they had no Extraordinary Precautions in place, they kept their Love Banks open and allowed other people to also meet their needs.

"It's another area of my life..." is utterly meaningless. ("It" doesn't even have a logical referent in that sentence.) Please stop creating word salads full of self-help jargon. "Working on it" = "dealing with this" = "doing nothing to actually solve the problem, but trying to talk a good game and create the false impression that you've gotten the problem under control."

I love how you repeatedly allude to your therapist, and then introduce the subject of "control" to try to convince us that your garden-variety affair is terribly deep and complicated.

There is nothing unique or complicated about your situation; you are simply trying to rationalize your affair so you don't have to give it up.

You have a chance to save your marriage. Please don't waste it trying to rationalize the irrational, and excuse the inexcusable. Your husband deserves better than that. Your kids deserve better than that. You deserve better than that.

This happens because your lovebank is open for business. When a person gets married, the lovebank is supposed to be closed down to everyone EXCEPT your spouse. Your spouse can't EVER effectively meet your needs as long as you are getting them met elsewhere. While your lovebank is open to every Tom, D*ck and Harry who comes along, it is closed to your husband. You make it impossible for him to meet your needs and then complain he is not meeting your needs.


But this does not resolve the issue at all. This is more glossing over and minimizing that will keep your lover on the farm. His wife needs to be informed of the facts of your affair and a no contact letter sent to him.

The fact that you so desperately don't want to do that tells me you are severely ADDICTED to him. Your affair with him is more important than your marriage.


You are hopeful that the therapist will protect your affair for you because you REFUSE to give this woman's husband up.

No, you don't try to control it. That is a lie. You have fought ending contact all through this thread. You are still in contact with your affair partner and have no intention of ending the affair.

I am convinced this poster is so addicted to her OM that she will say or do anything to keep him around. Including deceiving this man's wife. She pretends like she is her "friend" while she carries on an affair with her husband. With "friends" like that, who needs enemies?

Your actions make marital recovery impossible, thislife. Impossible.

EXACTLY.

Jessica, that is the language of WEASEL. Spoken in eloquence by every ADDICT.

She is till wayward and the above is true. Was mentioned that she directs her husband to the forum, I wonder if she talked to him about it, hmmm. She is like most WS that come here looking for attaboys and justification for their transgressions. Using blame shifting and gas lighting to keep her precious OM and husband. SMH

What you are saying is you have a problem, but you want to shift the blame and responsibility for the problem to your husband.

"Fixing" your husband will NOT address your issue with poor boundaries. This problem is yours to address. Someone who is earnest about the program works on their issues, as the skills for a successful marriage are the same regardless of your spouse.

The issue with poor boundaries is 100% yours here, stop trying to give your problem to your husband.
Again, how is this your husband problem to solve? It's not, it's yours.
You may be right. He may not know how to do this. Regardless his expertise in need meeting, that does not negate the need for you to address your own issues.
Because it keeps you honest. You yourself admitted that you have boundary issues. So be open and transparent about it. That way, folks who really care for you can let them know that you have issues and may need help recognizing when you are exhibiting poor boundaries.

It helps keep you accountable when you are transparent with others about your personal struggle.

So what. I'm sure he too has hurts and resentments. He has been in the same marriage as you.

I have some questions you might ask the therapist before you ask for personal opinions.

Ask your therapist how she views marriage. Ask how many marriages she has saved? Does she believe romantic love can be created with the right behaviors.

Most therapists do little more than rubber stamp what you are thinking in an effort to make you feel good about the choices you are making.

They do this regardless of if the choices will lead to happiness or doom down the road.

You may have gathered that the folks here are not going to do that. Collectively, we've probably covered the mistakes that both you and your husband made. Some have saved their marriages. Some let a wayward spouse who would not turn from his or her affair go and have applied MB in subsequent relationships/marriage. Others use it to size up potential spouses and so on.

But there is little or no "you go girl" nor "if it feels good, do it."

Many times, it doesn't feel good because you are changing a lifetime of learned behavior.

Therefore, if you are going to ask your therapist questions, ask her qualifications and success rate in saving marriages.

Then compare them with this program. Unless she is advocating MB, I suspect you will find her advice sorely lacking.

Of course you don't see the value in exposure because you know it will wreck your affair. Your "friend," the OM's wife will shut you out of their lives if she knows what you have done.

You know she will take action and you can't have that. I seriously doubt your husband knows the truth either.

Your goal is to protect your affair at all cost. That has been clearly demonstrated throughout your thread.

Thislife,

Do you know what is needed to build a romantic marriage? You are familiar with meeting emotional needs.

What are the other necessary components to a romantic marriage?

I get it, you want your needs met. Who doesn't?

But that's not the entire picture.

As long as you are putting holes in the bucket with other behaviors and lack of protection for your marriage, someone with infinite ability to meet needs will not be capible of filling a love bank that is closed to deposits and leaks out any deposits that may sneak through.

Since I doubt your husband has infinite ability to meet needs, I suspect he is also not really keen on meeting needs due to his own legitimate complaints about the marriage.

It's unlikely the marriage is miserable and unfulfilled only to you. Chances are, he too has complaints he would like you to address.

Again, since you are the only one here, what are you doing to learn ALL the skills to have the marriage you want, not just the ones that get you the things you want with little or no regard to what your spouse may want out of the marriage he shares with you?

Listen and follow the advice here and you will have the best shot at getting the marriage you both want.

Skip any steps and you will find yourself in the same place or worse as time progresses.

Okay, I will get the Surviving An Affair book for both of us to read. But I will seek a separation from him before I proceed with any of the other measures recommended. We probably should have separated before, but finances prevented it. It is hard for me to be completely honest with him when I am afraid of him. I don't care whether you believe me or not. It's the truth. He is a much calmer person, especially when he stays on his meds, but it has only been a few months since his last outburst.

Did anyone here recommend a separation?

So now you can't be honest with him because you are afraid of him?

Tell me this, how afraid can you be if you were carrying on with other men?

What are saying still does not add up.

And what have I done, exactly? She is aware of any time I have spent with her husband. He has many OSF's and he is a very friendly person. We have spent time together as couples since the original NC letter and everyone was fine. So what exactly would I be confessing to??

Separation in her mind is what she wants to practice her crappy boundaries with other men. Her BH gave her the perfect cover with his AO. She has her ace in the hole to destroy that mans heart all over again. Execute BLAMESHIFTING!

We have a history of domestic violence. It was the original reason for the individual counseling.

Dr. Harley would agree with separation if he has angry outbursts. This thread has gone so far that I may no longer be remembering the details properly, but if I am correct, his violence was brought on by his drug use - Dr. Harley would also encourage separation for that if he is unwilling to seek treatment.

See the links from my wife's signature about what to do with an angry husband. Solve the problem right - NOT by getting male friends to "support" you, NOT by dulling your pain with alcohol!