That makes it okay, right? (I can't count the number of people I've found who seem to believe this.)

Some things that are not necessarily a good idea even when you enthusiastically agree with your spouse:
* Skipping UA time
* Pornography
* Having sex with someone else (for all kinds of insane and idiotic "POJA"d reasons)
* Drug use
* Jumping off a bridge
* Russian roulette...

What struck me from Chapter 2 was Dr. Harley's statement after Jon's side of the story. That most BS are "Blindsided" by the affair.

That really struck a nerve with me. Why, because... 1st. of course IT COULD NEVER HAPPEN TO ME!

2nd. Our IB was so bad I didn't even pay attention to what had been going on for a year. A year!!

I'll never forget that movie feeling of the spinning room as I read the text I found.

I can remember thinking a little later, Who is this stranger I have been living with.? How did I miss the signs?

Post MB, the signs were everywhere. Just like you guys were talking about it starts coming unraveled when your UA dips or as in our case stops all together.

You're correct wle. I call it "I've been educated". Even with all the reading of Dr. Harley's books/articles and hours of MB radio and reading Dr. H on the private forum I will learn something new.

I sometimes feel like I'm in pre-school trying to earn my PHD.

Like markos stated so well "Dr. Harley is the best pattern matcher to learn from". I really like how Dr. H requests and supports people to write him when they disagree with him on something. Even with all his years and hours of saving marriages he still likes to look at exceptions.

The revision of SAA, is a prime example of that.

I still haven't gotten my book! Guess I'll have to read fast to catch up. Lol. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to read/focus like I used to since D-day. One of those side effects, you know.

Got my book yesterday with a bonus- "I Cherish You"

Read Fast RQ!
And keep posting. The more MB eyes on a problem the better.

Dr. Harley says that "Regardless of where an affair falls on the emotional attachment continuum, it exists because it meets important EN."

I think this is an important fact that needs to be stated early and often. Instead of wasting a lot of sleepless nights on how "in luv" they are/were, work on EP's, stopping LB's and meeting each others EN's. That is once the initial steps have been properly taken to end the A.

Once I understood that MR was possible even though WW,in her own words, " Had a moderate attachment" with AP that was a game changer. The hope that MB brings is what I think draws so many, and for good reason IT WORKS!

Agree, wle.

And for me, the key fact was that the ONLY REASON Taffy "became attached" to The Dolly was because she met an EN of his. NOT because she was some magical, special person, destined for him alone.

It could have been ANYONE who was willing to meet that EN. ANYONE. (Well, okay, anyone skanky enough to pick up a married man, and a client at that...)

Once I had a grip on that fact, my mindset transformed. I shook off any blame for his A.

Thank you guys for keeping this discussion going. I apologize for being so late this week in commenting - it has been a very busy week!

One of the first things I notice in chapter 3 is Sue's dishonesty - not the dishonesty in the affair, but the dishonesty leading up to it. She never talked with Jon about her problem of fading love. Talking about the problem is always the first step. Sometimes you may have to take action if the response to talking about the problem is abusive or a commitment to continued neglect, but the first thing to see is: what happens when I bring up this problem and try to talk about it?
I just got done listening to a radio show where a BH expressed the belief that people shouldn't expect their emotional needs to be met constantly through life, that sometimes life gets in the way and you do what has to be done, like working extra time on the job. Just as some marriages have the wrong rule "opposite sex friendships are okay" embedded into their firmware, some marriages have the wrong rule "sometimes you don't have enough time for each other, and you do what has to be done" embedded. This is a recipe for disaster.

Dr. Harley's comments about people's depressions being instantly lifted when their emotional needs are met is enlightening. I know that I have been depressed in life when I am lonely - when my emotional needs are not being met. When my needs are met, it is true: the depression instantly goes away. Prisca has experienced the same.

The tragedy is that so many people do this in an affair and that so many people do not realize that they can do this in their marriage.

Talking about it (complaining!) to your spouse is always the first step!

I am so glad that one of the outcomes of this thread was for you to write the radio show and get that book. Jump in!

Exactly! One of the common scenarios we see around here is "analysis paralysis." A focus on feelings and thoughts instead of BEHAVIOR. Dr. Harley says if you can get the behavior set up correctly the feelings and beliefs will follow. He's right!

You can even see when a WS posts that when they start doing a few of the steps suggested to them, their fog lifts a bit. They sound less foggy. They focus on action instead of words.

That focus on the love in the affair is also a big hangup. There have been many posts on this forum dedicated to proving that the feelings in an affair are not really "love." Well, biologically, they are. Dr. Harley has studied the feeling of romantic love for decades. He knows how it is created, how it is maintained, and how it is destroyed. While it is true that affairees typically are not the kind of people who will give the CARING LOVE that sustains the feeling romantic love for a lifetime, it is a real time waster to fret over what the affairees felt. Instead, get busy creating something even better than that in your own marriage!

*ahem*

BOOMSHAKALAKA!

The answer to "how in love" is easy enough - enough to trigger romantic love and the reciprocal meeting of emotional needs. Enough to create a contrast effect w/ the LB$ account of the BS.

And you have nailed the exact proper solution; end the competition by ending LB$ deposits for the AP, and then eclipse the AP's LB$ balance.

I haven't seen it mentioned much lately... but often times when there is a cake-eating wayward, the advice given to the BS is "be the better cake."

Bingo!

Oh yea, That is huge.

Especially when two protection lairs (me and FWW) do that to each other for over 29 years. It's not pretty.

It can start innocently and with good intentions, but as we see in Sue's story, bad ideas with good intentions are still... just bad ideas!

People always say "Do what has to be done." and that is usually at the expense of the marriage. Work, kids etc. The thinking in a marriage that they can ignore each other's EN until things are better never works out.

Yes. That was my thinking early in our marriage. We had Marriage Builders books - I knew about 15 hours of undivided attention! But I also knew that that was "not reasonable", and since it wouldn't fit into our schedule, we'd just have to make it work without it like everybody else.

The problem is that everybody else is NOT making it work.

Oh, and I thought we'd have to make it work with kids present, and make it work under a whole host of other compromises. Just like everybody else.

You see this reasoning here all the time: lots of people are apart from their spouse for their job, so that must be okay. Lots of people work overtime for a few years, so that must be okay. The kids need us, this is the time of life when they come first, everybody knows the kids are supposed to come first.

In a radio show I heard the other day (the same one I referenced earlier), the FWW just knew that life would be terrible if she couldn't go to all of her OC's school events because OM was there. The important thing to her was that the child not be "neglected." It just didn't sound reasonable. It didn't sound promising.

As posters attempting to help comfort a BS, I think we lend way too much credence to the "fantasy" idea behind infidelity. It's more comforting to think that our spouse was lured away by something outside of reality. It ain't the truth, though.

It may fall along a particular spectrum of severity - largely depending on which stage it is caught and/or killed in - but the LB$ balance is in no way, shape, or form "fantasy." And getting to that realization is paramount to recognizing the very real threat that infidelity presents... as well as the very real opportunities recovery provides.

Or, as I saw on another forum the other day, "Angry Outbursts and Disrespectful Judgements are not abuse, otherwise all men would be considered abusive. So these things are really okay."

Believe it or not, Dr. Harley's even got an article on that!

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5067d_qa.html

That "all men" comment really bugs me. I have known some men who are incredibly kind and gentle and it's impossible to imagine them ever having an angry outburst.

And besides - are men helpless and unable to learn to control their emotions?

(Because, I mean, if I say that about women, people think I'm sexist...)

Interestingly, I didn't particularly care what Taffy felt - or thought he felt - for the Dolly. However, quite a few of my friends, whom I had exposed to, debated this point.... was it love, lust, wishful thinking? Lechery?... long into the night, amongst themselves.

It also jumped out to me the lack of PORH that Sue gave to Jon when she started having those feelings. Instead of telling her DH how she felt, she held it in until she found Greg to start talking and spending time meeting ENs and LB$ deposits. Feels so good....

Then go home to Jon and responsibilities...Doesn't feel good