Very true, Brainy.

However, I think it is easy for us (pre-MB) to become conditioned into stuffing our complaints. We believe we should buck up, quit whining, stop being selfish, or so sensitive.

I think Sue may not have even realized the extent of her dissatisfaction. Yes, she wished she could spend more time with Jon, but he was busy working hard, providing a good living for her and the kids.

It's possible she only "crystallized" her complaints with Jon's behaviour when she finally WAS getting her needs met by Greg. And by then, it was too late.

This week we are reading and discussing Chapter 4 - How do Affairs Usually End

The central theme of this chapter is the fact that affairs usually die a natural death - and why. I would like to call every reader's attention to the way Dr. Harley makes constant reference to the Love Bank in this chapter. The Love Bank is Dr. Harley's scientific model of how our emotions work. The scientific value of the Love Bank comes from its predictive value - if you understand the Love Bank model and how to use it and apply it to specific situations, it can usually be used to predict how people will behave. This is what makes Dr. Harley's advice so usually spot on, and its why so often when people post on this forum, many experienced posters can tell them what is going on in their marriage.

The Love Bank explains an affair: spend enough time with someone in pleasant situations (depositng love units) and cross the romantic love threshold, and you will find them irresistable. Literally. Men who described themselves for years as "not the romantic type" and who wouldn't speak two words to their wife will suddenly wax poetic and start buying flowers. Woman who haven't wanted to have relations with their husbands in years and were convinced they had little interest in sex will suddenly find themselves hot and bothered. Unfortunately the existence of these feelings with someone other than one's spouse leads to tragedy for the betrayed spouse, the children - and ultimately the wayward spouse themselves.

The Love Bank also explains why most affairs die a natural death. As Dr. Harley explains, an affair is an illusion. Yes, the feelings of romantic love in an affair are very real. But they were created in an unnatural situation: the affairees did not have to solve the day to day problems of life (such as raising children or making financial decisions) together; the wayward spouse had a spouse at home taking care of the children and/or meeting other needs; conflict is especially minimized. The affairees are able to arrange to be together only when they are happy (and thus make large love bank deposits and avoid withdrawals) only because the affair is propped up at the expense of someone else.

Eventually, reality begins to show: the affairees face conflict, a difference of opinion. Typically the affairees don't have the skill of resolving conflict in a way that protects romantic love - SO THEY FIGHT.

Let me just pause here to

Meanwhile, the betrayed spouse finds out what is going on, and maybe some other people as well. That fact alone adds conflict into an affair: situations that the affairees will want to resolve differently, and will tend to fight about. (Even if people who find out "support" them!) The betrayed spouse stops propping up the affair so much. Children and finances start to become real issues. The affairees start spending time together when they are NOT happy - love bank withdrawals! There's a good chance the affairees are prone to using Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgments, and Angry Outbursts to try to get their way. And best of all, the affairees are probably in the habit of continuing to make opposite sex friends, and are likely to jump ship for another affair if something better comes along (another artificial bubble situation where someone can make large love bank deposits in an unnatural absence of situations that would lead to withdrawals). And the affairees usually do not have the formal commitment of marriage that might have motivated them to want to learn to fix and keep their relationship. (Even if they do, they've already demonstrated that they tend to disregard that kind of formal commitment.)

The Love Bank perfectly predicts what happens: the affairees start to fall out of love into "like." And then "dislike." Finally, if lucky, they begin to hate each other.

In the cold light of day, a formerly fogged out wayward will often see an affair for the horrendous mistake it was, and may discover that their life is better off with their spouse, even if the marriage relationship before seemed to be bad. They may even discover that their spouse is the one person on earth who is MOST motivated to build a PERMANENT relationship of romantic love with them, learning the skills to create romantic love, sustain it for a lifetime, and maintain it during the resolution of conflicts.

One of the most remarkable statements I heard my FWW say is that after several months she had to start reminding herself that she wanted the A. Dr. Harley mentions how Sue's fog would lift temporally and she would see her dishonesty and what she was doing to Jon, her family and her life. Then the fog would and return cloud her judgement.

My FWW said that her LB for OM started to drain once she realized that OM was not ever going to want anything more than, his words "fun" The reality was taking it's toll on OM's balance in her LB. Much like Sue after hearing Greg's voice all it took was an FB message or E-Mail about a visit and FWW could not resist.

The power of LB$ over the romantic love threshold can not be over stated. Even overriding common sense,personal beliefs and morals.

I think it is important for a BS to cause as much conflict for the affair as possible by letting the WS deal with the consequences of his actions. Utilize exposure, do not enable or help the WS in any way. Also cause conflict with finances. I did this by petitioning Kiss for child support. He also had nowhere to live since the kids and I moved to a rental home that he had no access to. Kiss has admitted to me that he and the AP would fight a lot and I believe this is because reality was causing issues in their faqntasy world.

It definitely takes all the fun out of an affair if you have to work at it!


Exactly. When a love bank account is full, you think the person who filled it is committed to you for life, for better or for worse. It's the same reason why some people make extremely poor marriage choices (i.e., marrying someone who is physically violent or has a drug or alcohol problem or is unfaithful before the marriage). You are in the fog and your emotions say this will last forever. Objective people on the outside, though, can tell you that the other person will eventually drain the account they filled.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to participate before, although I said I would. I've caught up with my reading and I'm now ready to discuss the next chapter with everyone.

Where are our discussion points for this week, markos? Chop chop!

We are on chapter 5 this week, and you don't have to wait for me - please just jump right in with your comments!

I was wondering if any one has ever had a Kevin and Lee type of story? I have tried to imagine how I would have responded if my DW would have come to me first with the A instead of me finding it out.

I can see where that scenario would definitely be preferred, though just as painful. Having a WS confess the A and express a desire to repair the M to me would have at least saved the BS the extra agony of not knowing if the WS even wanted to come back to the M.

Along those same lines, that makes me think about the "Affair Continuum" and how most A's are not at either extreme. (Soul mate or ONS being the extremes).

I'd imagine that if Kevin had let things continue, it may have moved closer to the "soul mate" extreme.

I think that played as big a factor as him coming clean did. Had it progressed closer to the extremes, it would have been harder confession or not.

Yes, some of us do. My wife confessed to me, thanks to the prompting of some good folks here!

I agree with that and hearing the FWW explain this very subject was a tough pill to swallow. I found out later there was a stronger attachment than was at first admitted to.

I never asked if FWW had began to think about confessing. If we were adhering to the policy of RH early in our M I would have been warned years ago about POSOM's interest!

I have read several stories of confession over the years here, but as far as I can remember, none where the affair was in progress as Kevin's was. I can remember a few where the affair had already ended. Sometimes the WS posts to MB saying "what shall I do?" and is told to confess.

I thought it was interesting that Dr. Harley had a note at the end of the chapter about how he prescribes the same steps regardless of the level of attachment. One reason being that the wayward spouse is likely to downplay the level of attachment. The other reason being that if the attachment is less, then these precautions are EASIER to take!


I heard a radio show yesterday (from December 2011) where Dr. Harley pointed out how different a man's situation would have been if he and his wife had practiced radical honesty from the beginning. He had begun receiving suggestive texts at work. He thought it was a male coworker trying to be funny. It turned out to be a woman. But of course he pursued the texts instead of simply telling his wife! They could've investigated it together!

My reading of Kevin's story is that it was already quite close to the "soul mate" extreme. Dr Harley describes an intense attachment to Amy(?), with Kevin meeting her to exercise at the gym every day, talking to her etc. They had already professed their love for each other (I think - I'll need to go and get my book). Kevin felt that Amy was the right person for him and he and Lee had nothing left in common. That's how "soulmate" affairs are described.

When Kevin sent the NC letter, he entered a savage withdrawal. He was offered a job immediately in another car dealership but couldn't see anything good about his situation. He was horrible to Lee. Dr H said they were forced by circumstances to stay in each other's company, and that was a good thing because without that, Kevin would certainly have contacted Amy. His time at home with Lee was horrible.

I thought Kevin's story showed a clearer example of the horrors of withdrawal than Sue's story. It is true that Sue went back to Greg during withdrawal, but in doing so she made it easier on herself - and of course, Jon didn't have to live through her misery for long. Kevin's story shows new BSs how hard it is likely to be for them to live through withdrawal, but how a clean break for those crucial few weeks make recovery easier.

Since we're talking about the chapter on how affairs SHOULD end, I wonder if anyone here experienced a clean break. Regardless of how the affair was discovered, did anyone here experience no further contact between the affair partners?

Perhaps, since that is so difficult to be sure of, I should put it another way. Did anyone here experience continued contact and gaslighting, despite promises?

I know I did. I figured that was the norm.

I did, SugarCane.

Upon my first discovery, Taffy promised to only have "business contact as required", with the Dolly. (I hear MelodyLane snickering at that one...)

He downplayed how often they might be required to be in "business contact". And, as per our agreement, he gave me daily reports of their contact, if any, only, of course, giving me the details of when he and the D had a meeting together, and there were always other people in the room. (Total gaslighting...)

Now, he says he INTENDED for this to be the case, but that literally the MINUTE he was in the same building with her, he was sexting her again. And this went on for 5 months, until D-Day 2. He now says he knew it was wrong, knew it was a terrible mess, knew he should stay away from her and come clean with me, but he could not make himself.

At the time, I didn't consider I was in a False Recovery, because I knew they were still in contact, which would end once Taffy's work transfer was effective. However, we were working with S/Harley at the time, and trying to do some "advance work" on recovery.

But this period of 5 months between D-Day's, was much more difficult to handle, because now Taffy was deliberately lying to my face daily, even after he KNEW how hurt I was by his A.

Taffy said he always wanted to tell me about the A from the beginning, but the Dolly convinced him he should wait until they saw where their relationship was going. He felt I would not "mind" him pursuing the A initially, that I would be open to the idea of an open marriage. Though I am sure this was post-D-Day fog-babble, I wonder what would have happened if he HAD told me closer to the beginning, like Kevin told Lee.

I love that Dr. Harley gives a big list of Extraordinary Precautions in this chapter. If that was done in the first edition, I don't remember.

I strongly suggest that couples surviving an affair not try to reinvent the wheel: instead of trying to invent your own list of Extraordinary Precautions, START with Dr. Harley's, and ADD to it if necessary for your own situation.

I'm listing them here for the board's convenience:

Markos I'm adding this to our EP thread.

Thanks.

It was, although I don't think the "Allow technical accountability" was in there. I assume that means phone tracking, gps, etc.