Hello MB,

Im here to post an update on how things are going here....

Quick recap:

History:

Its been over 3 years since my A and D-Day. I went from being a kind and caring husband to a selfish, uncaring, immoral and quite frankly disgusting human being. Not only during the A but after. Although my wayward behaviour in terms of the OW stopped immediately upon discovery, I tortured my wife for years with trickle truth, no effort to recover the marriage or to even try and understand my wifes pain and multiple attempts to leave the marriage. She should have left me a long time ago now and I can see that would have been much healthier to her, but she battled on against all odds, relentlessly being let down by me time and time again. She along with therapists, councilors and Steve Harley all tried to help me understand the need for change, the need for improvement but I dismissed it as change is not possible for me and I am who I am. I was very pigheaded and I wasnt willing to do any hard work or heavy lifting within this marriage.

** Important fact **

Despite being married for 11 years now I never fully commited to the marriage. By that I mean that I always had a plan of how I would survive and run my life alone, down to living arrangements and finances etc. I wanted the marriage but always felt my wife was to good for me and so always felt it could end therefore the plan. However never commiting to the marriage and failure is not an option meant that hard work was never an option either.....

Decision time:

Just before 2012 we reached another breaking point in our marriage and were back to the should we split or not conversation. I was so close to losing my wonderful wife that I cant explain exactly what happended but I made a decision there and then to whole heartidly commit to the marriage. This may sound ridiculous to all of you reading this but the change was nothing short of incredible. Ive spoken those words many time before but without the meaning or feeling and many times the next day ive felt resentment for staying and therefore another false recovery was born. But the next day I felt great, like the weight of the world had been removed from my shoulders. I looked at my wife like the light of my life that she is. I wanted nothing but her happiness and if she chose that to still be with me then thats it. We would have it!!

2012:

The days following the decision I was actually reading (I had this info for 3 years) all the material and information and living it. Meeting my wifes EN's, ensuring UA time, utilising POJA. I had personal issues to resolve such as a previous issue with masterbation. I set up a notebook recording daily information to help break my patterns and was truthful with my data. After a month I stopped this as my habits had changed; I was able to maintain my new character without the need to monitor and have maintained this to this day without a single setback.

Of course my wife was weary as we had in theory been here many times over the 3 years but I knew it was different and it was time to make her see and believe it. Things went from strength to strength.... I did have a major setback as both of our threads show but instead of letting it knock us off track or me running off and finding my head burying sandpit we talked it out like adults and have appropriately moved forward.

We have had a lot on our plate this year with my wife opening a shop and her uncle and family moving the uk close to us but we have tackled it together and supported each other throughout and we feel great for it. We have plans going forward to maintain UA time and are excited about our future together......


I dont know how to explain this but a simple decision has changed my life forever. A change of mindset that I fought against for so long has opened my eyes and I feel like a new man for it; not the husband I was before but a better man for my wonderful wife...

How much UA time are you and your BW getting a week?

We are carefully scheduling our UA time as we have busy lives but will not neglect US again. We schedule 20hours every monday morning for the week.

Long time, so here is my update�..
My wife and I are getting on much better. We regularly use POJA which is a valuable tool for our communication. We schedule UA successfully despite our ridiculously busy life.
I guess I am here as I have been feeling so down and overwhelmed by our life in general and it�s affecting my wife. She has requested me to post here as this was part of our joint recovery agreement.
We have always had a busy life compared with anyone we know. We both work, have 4 kids, allotment to maintain, private work for extra cash, the obvious requirements of family life (homework time/housework/kids attention/scouts etc. etc.).
I started to hide away in a game on my phone during my quiet time just to escape from reality. Trouble is this escape became addictive and I found myself sneaking around to play it throughout the day rather than tackle this life that was making me so unhappy. We sat down and POJA�d the game usage and agreed it was too much and reduced it to mornings before school run and whilst at work on breaks as these times don�t affect the family or relationship time. This was hard at first but I preserved and stuck to our agreement, which gained my wife�s trust back regarding sneaking around. My wife applied for a dream job and for part of the assessment process was a fitness test. She organised a personal trainer and as she lacks willpower we decided I would workout too and tailor both our dietary needs together to make the cost of her dieting plausible (bulk buying). We both worked out separately but during the same hour in the morning which worked well.
This all sounds good but there is so much stress in our lives and its always go go go. Very rarely we get to just sit and talk or relax. She works during the day 10am-4pm and I work evenings 6pm-2am. This means we don�t incur any childcare costs which we simply couldn�t afford. Before anyone picks up on this, my wife owns a shop so at least 4 out of the 5 days during the week I go to the shop with her. So we spend a vast amount of time together there. Ill include details of an average day for an example:
7:30am � 8:30am - I wake up with the boys, organise breakfast and feed pets, washing up etc.
8:30-9:00 � school runs
09:00 � wife wakes up and gets ready for work
9:00-10:00 � my workout
10:00-1500 � shop with wife
15:00-15:30 � school runs
15:30-17:30 � kids bathing, dinner, pack lunches, allotment etc.
18:00-02:00 � I work
02:00 � I sleep
It might look like I�ve rounded times up but there is literally nothing to spare throughout the day to stop for a minute. I�m very unhappy at the moment and although I�m functioning alright and everything is getting done my wife can see I�m depressed. I can see we can�t change anything at the moment. We are saving for our first family holiday in 9 (NINE) years this year and so I�ve been working many days 18-20hrs when works available; this will end in a few weeks though. We need the allotment as the cost of living in the UK is ridiculous and it�s the only way we can afford fresh produce as the supermarket prices are crazy to �eat healthy�. Markets are an option but the food dies within a couple of days at best. The workout can stop but to be honest it�s all I have for me in this life. I�ve given up cycling (a previous passion) as it takes too much time to cycle and then maintain and clean bike afterwards and literally wouldn�t fit into our life. If I stop the workout it will simply be replaced by something else that�s banging at the door i.e. allotment.
I don�t see a way out and so just plod on day and day like a robot. The 6 week school holidays are coming in a couple of weeks which although it sounds horrible, my wife and I are dreading as our life can�t change and just means the boys get dragged around to the shop etc. with us. They hate it but if we take turns in the shop, we don�t see each other. So the level of entrapment is about to increase tenfold.
Oh and the weekends are identical so don�t think it gets easier. Saturday we still have the shop so a normal day plus the kids are with us. Sunday of course is housework and kids homework all day as we have hardly touched housework all week due to being at the shop.
It�s kind of strange to be posting here as our marriage isn�t in a bad place. Could be better of course but that isn�t the issue at the moment. We support each other and work very well as a team. I�m just depressed with this life to the point I get no enjoyment from it and look forward to nothing including the holiday.
I guess I should mention a motivator for the workout from my side. I�ve always had very low self-esteem and struggled for years to build myself up from the skinny wretch I am. My wife always said liked my body. Over the years she changed and started commenting on more muscly men around or on TV/movies. This crushed my confidence even more. I�ve always wanted to improve myself for me and not my wife as it�s my issue, but I decided to have one last go as I�m not getting any younger. We have a holiday planned soon and she looks great following her personal training and bless her she�s feeling good about herself which she should and I�m so happy for her and proud of her efforts. Trouble is I keep bringing her down as I don�t feel good enough for her. I feel embarrassed on her behalf to be seen in public with me and try to walk slightly behind if we are out. I wish I had the confidence to say I�m ugly but I don�t care look at my wife; but I can�t. She innocently mentioned jokingly with a trusted male mutual family friend about a hot guy in the gym next to the shop the other day; I�m worried on holiday it will end up with me hiding behind the kids permanently while she�s checking out the good looking guys which there will be plenty of abroad in holiday resorts.
I don�t know what im expecting here as asking people to get a perception of things through words isn�t easy but I want to give it a go as it can�t hurt and could get some useful advice.

Thanks for the update.

Wow your schedule is crazy. How much sleep are you getting? I know not getting enough sleep can make depression worse and vice versa.

So are you still exercising?

Have you told your DW that you "don't like it when she checks out other men"?

When you do get time for UA are you doing things you like?

Are you holding to your gaming POJA?

I have worked evenings / nights for so many years now, I have survived on 4 - 5 1/2 hours for as long as I remember now. On average im asleep at 2am and up at 7am. Luckily for me im not someone who struggles to sleep. 5mins in bed and im asleep, no winding down period required like many people.


Yes I started the American "insanity" workout which is a 63 day programme. I have 7 days left now. I really enjoyed the first month as requires 45mins a day which works inbetween the school run and leaving for my wife's work. The second month requires 60-90 mins each day which has really taken the fun out of it as that simply doesn�t fit in the allotted time.

Once its finished im looking to just do some basic weights at home in a smaller time frame like before. Id like to keep some form of fitness/exercise ongoing where possible.


Yes of course, not always at the time but eventually. She knows it makes me doubt myself but I can't blame her at all.


We went through many lists to try and come up with what was possible in terms of activities. We lost many due to finances with the holiday saving etc. We have now narrowed it to realistic items we can both relax and enjoy doing.


Initially as I said I struggled and love busted a few times leading to difficult conversations, still occasionally found time to sneak away to play. Although the playing time was greatly reduced it was still causing love bank withdrawls. Since we had the chat ive stuck to it very well. The workout reduces my game time even further as I do that within my agreed time but at least doing something useful with my time.

Are you on ADs? Will you get into your doctor and get some?

No I am not on AD's. They are very hard to get onto in the UK, I have tried a few times now. I will need my wife to attend with me to explain the effect on the family to really convince the doctor they are necessary.

Good.

Did you listen to Dr. Harley's advice to your DW's call?

No I am not aware of it as I dont have any dealings with her thread or what is discussed there as im aware that can influence the advice given and the topics / nature of discussions.

I will go and ask her now regarding this, thank you.

On a positive note; we have just returned from a truly wonderful day at the beach as a family. So many great memories and just what the doctor ordered. Feeling great at the moment

I will post the clip as soon as it goes into the archives, but since it was the Friday show it will play all weekend.

Go to "Listen Now" and you'll be able to listen to it now.

I listened to the radio show and discussed it with my wife. I will make a call to book an appointment first thing Monday morning for us both to attend.

another quick update:

called doctor surgery as promised and have an appointment for the 29th July which is much earlier than expected. Good news...

Good job.

How's that UA time coming along?

Sorry been ridiculously busy lately. We are still doing well with UA time. Making the most of available time and creative with others. For example we may have an appointment but we will walk and sit in a park together talking afterwards.

We are so close to our first family holiday in 10 years and so im working private jobs where I can but we arent neglecting our marriage.

Thanks for the easy link. I had actually sat down with my wife the morning it was mentioned on my thread and listened to it. Following that I booked an appointment for my wife and I to see a doctor on 29th July.

Sorry forgot to update you. Went to the doctors on the 29th and my wife and I battled and I am now on AD's.

Battled?

Haven't you both read Love Busters? Why are you two still struggling with some basic concepts?

Stop all Love Busters??

No sorry you misunderstood. I meant my wife and I had to battle the GP. I told you its not easy here to get onto AD's. We managed it by working together. Theres no issue. Ive taken then everyday so far and will continue too