Hmm....interesting to read about putting in meal prep and sleep, etc. into the schedule. We have not been doing that and we will put it in there this Sunday. We did plan two dates on this current week's schedule, but next week we will aim for four.

Last night's date got messed up. H had to work late and our plans wouldn't have been able to end with SF due to time constraints, so we changed our plans. We ARE trying to follow Doctor H.'s advice about planning three hours of being "out" on a date prior to ending with SF.

SF was beyond odd last night though...we had a relaxing evening with a ton of IC, I was feeling great...we started having SF and suddenly OW would not leave my head. We did work through it but man that kind of stunted the night for me.

Nah, I don't particularly look forward to working on the deck. Maybe when we actually stain it, we could stretch and say that it's fun because we'll enjoy the finished product, haha, but that's about it.

Okay, so THIS week when we do the schedule, we will add four dates at the most enjoyable hours of the week. Man alive, sounds like our future weekends are going to be BUSY!


I DO love the way that you write, LongWayFromHome. You have such a knack for making everything sound so appealing.

Okay so no TV. Nothing that isn't recreational and fun for both of us. Nothing that stifles the UA.

This board as well as our local counselor (we use him to help us work on particular MB issues) has been pounding it into our heads that we need to plan more fun. Our counselor told us last week that even fun wasn't enough, we need to be silly together! We are realizing that you and our counselor both are right. We are SO darned serious...we are working so hard on our M that we were going days without sharing any laughter.

I think that we both feel that we HAVE to work so hard on our M in order to try to avoid a D. In reality though, by working so diligently and never truly relaxing, that is not doing much to add to H's LB$ with me. So where we are now is back to getting in that 25 hrs of UA time, and trying our bestest to have some silliness and laughter in each day. It's been about ten days now and I am hoping hoping that I will feel some sparks towards H soon.

Just adding this to my thread so that H and I can refer to it easily for more convo starters. LongWayFromHome, hope that you don't mind! These are some more excellent ideas!

You are on the right track; you sound very logical, in spite of the usual post D-Day roller coaster.

The one thing that stands out immediately is that your H drove near the OW's neighborhood. If she lives close by, you two really ought to consider moving. Her proximity to your home is alarming and could be a temptation for your H as well as a trigger to you. You and your H need to change the conditions of your marriage and your life to make it impossible for him to have an A.

All of your emotional responses are completely normal. In time, IF your H deposits enough love units and IF he avoids destroying your love with LB, then you will be in love with him again. If you do the same, he will be in love with you, too. Two to five years is about the time frame for marital recovery and for the resentment to fade away. The more you have to get past, the longer it is likely to take.

Images of the affair during SF: I bet most of us have experienced that as well. That will pass in time, too. I'm not promising that you never think of it,but it will get easier. Time is against you now, but one day you will look back and realize how far you have come.

I've heard Dr. Harley talk about the idea of working hard on a marriage. He said the hard work is in building all the new habits. Once those habits are created, marriage is much easier. Once your H is in the habit of being affectionate in the ways you like and enjoying conversation with you, it will be so much easier for you to feel bonded with him and want to meet his needs for SF and recreational companionship.

Signing up for the Online Seminar would be such a good idea for you two. We thought we could do it on our own; we're both disciplined and college-educated, but it turned out that we really needed the accountability and extra help offered by the program. Do you have the Five Steps workbook? (sorry if I've already asked.) The worksheets are so helpful for creating a plan to meet each EN and eliminate each LB, step by step. Does your MC help you with each step?

You mention having had problems with depression in the past? Have you been diagnosed with endogenous depression? This is the kind of depression that is not caused by a situation; rather this kind of depression is internal and doesn't go away when things improve. People with endogenous depression often have to take medication throughout their lives to control the symptoms.

Most depression in women is caused by their marriage. Dr. Harley has discussed this on the radio. If your marriage has been a disappointment to you, it's possible this may have actually led to your depressions of the past. If you can't take meds for the time being, then hopefully you are getting plenty of healthy exercise to help boost your energy and get your spirits up.

When your thoughts are dark, be gentle but direct with your H about what you need at that moment. "I'm having a really hard time right now and I need you to hold me." Your H should get into the habit of asking you every day, "What can I do for you?"

Recovery is hard. It takes a great deal of effort to work through the pain and disillusionment and build a brand new marriage.

Good Day, LWFH! No, OW does not live close by, but she does live right off of a freeway exit about 30 minutes away. For H's job, he is going to have to go that way occasionally. H already quit his job after D-day so that he would not have to routinely drive that way. But still, in his line of work, it is going to happen.

I'm not trying to stick up for H because frankly, I don't like having to deal with ANY of this. If I could do anything right this second to feel better, my first choice would be walking away from everything that we own and moving to a trailer by the ocean lol. But...H did alert me as he is supposed to, to him driving near her neighborhood, and his alert to me felt re-assuring.


He is doing better than I ever thought that he could...however now that I have posted here, and now that we both have spent time read, read, reading other BS and WS stories...I realize that we have a LONG way to go. I think that H realizes that too because he seems to be stepping up his efforts even more.

There are things that H does that I did not realize are LB, and suddenly I do realize because I am feeling it. I am telling him about each thing as they come up, and he is starting to tell me his stuff also. We are learning PORH on another level now.

That said, right now I still don't think that H is at the line, or maybe it is MY line...where H is able to deposit love units to me. Maybe I reject them? I am feeling care about him more (as opposed to disgust), but I'm not quite "there" if we talk about the attraction that would cause me to fall in love again.

We spent 21 hours of UA time this weekend alone (plus ten hours during the weekdays), and I noticed all weekend that I would describe what I need from H, and he would respond "but I did that two hours ago", and I would realize that he had indeed done that...and yet it had meant nothing to me. I still feel like my head is a ping pong ball. I feel a tad bit hopeful...but still reserved I guess. Maybe I am just emotionally protecting myself and that is normal?


THANK YOU LongWay, I needed to read that. SF is a high EN for me, and it feels so hopeless to me when we have stumbling blocks in that department.

Since SF is so important for me, when that tanks, it leaves a devastating impression on me for hours later because I feel hopeless. The other evening, we DID manage to save the SF, and that conversely left a hopeFUL impression for me.

Part of the Roller Coaster I assume.


True that. With spending so much UA time together this weekend, we had lots of opportunities for LB'ing...and we worked together to avoid them and POJA instead. I wouldn't say that we are good at it yet, but we are starting to get it. I can see how POJA and PORH will make everything easier once it becomes a habit. We are getting better at speaking our needs and desires. It is exhausting right now, but we did have FUN this weekend!


We are saving for the online program. I had thought that the online seminar included the coach and Dr. Harley's weekend boards, but now we re-read the info this weekend, and it looks like we will have to buy the online one year program to get that ($945?). So it will take some saving time unless we get some windfalls in the meanwhile.

Yes, we have the Five Steps Workbook. We did the UA questionnaire together this past weekend. It was very enlightening. Surprising answers on both of our sides. Plus, we had been planning a walk in the local park, but after we completed that UA questionnaire and I saw how much fun H thinks doing things with our dogs is, I offered for us to take the dogs with us to the park. H lit up like the proverbial Christmas Tree lol. It was also more fun for me than I had thought that it would be.

Our local MC is very good, but he is not MB. Pretty much what we do with him is tell him what particular problem area we need help with, lately we have been spending time brainstorming fun ideas, silly fun, how H can better go out of his way to think of ideas outside of the box to help me to feel better, etc. H has an extreme fear that I will opt for D, and so he has great difficulty not being "stunted" when trying to help me. He is afraid that if he does the "wrong" thing, that I will be gone (and for a while he was probably right).


No, I had dysthymia (low level depression) when I was younger. Basically I think that they just kept me on meds for too long. Back then, they did not know as much as today and they did not monitor as often. I had bad reactions to the meds in that they had the opposite of the intended affect. Prior to my cancer surgery last year, I was put back on one med temporarily, and they took me right off after two weeks. Frankly, it wasn't worth the emotional ride that I (already) was going through at that time...it made that ride worse, and then took another couple of weeks after stopping meds for me to feel better.


I can believe that is true! Yes, my M was a disappointment to me once our children were born, and I bet that did lead to my depression back then. Somewhere along the line, we became non-integrated and excluded each other from the "rooms" in our lives, and I got happy with my life again. For about 20 years pre-D-day, I loved life and felt no depression.

Now that I am facing things again, and of course now the A, I am depressed again. That's the ugly truth. BUT I am also feelings stirrings of feelings for H again, and we are back to being totally integrated. More than ever before, even more than before we had our children.


More great advice, thank you.

I'll take a leap here and guess that at the time you discovered your H's A, you were probably not in love with him. Is that correct? I know that, looking back, I hadn't actually been in love with my H in years. Caring love, yes; romantic love, no.

If that was indeed the case, D-Day probably ripped a hole in his account in your love bank and whatever love you had held for him drained away...and then his account went deep into the negative.

So now you are at the point where he can make love bank deposits, but since you are likely in the negative, it's going to take many many more love bank deposits on his part to get to the romantic love threshold. People here have said it's like trying to fill up a pond using little pebbles. You just keep throwing them in, persistently and consistently, and eventually, a bridge is built.

When you ask your H for something that you need, it's really not a great idea for him to say that he already did that. If you ask for, say, a hug or kiss or some other sign of his care, whether it's the first time that day or the fiftieth time, it's because it's what you are needing for that moment. The only caveat is that whatever he is doing for you should also be enjoyable to him. Or that he enjoys the results of his efforts.

If you and your H can keep up your efforts by keeping your UA time up and meeting each others needs, avoiding love busters, using the POJA and PORH, you will once again be in love with each other. And it is sure to be quite different, much better, than what you had before.

It really would be a great idea to move away from that area. Thirty minutes is still pretty close. I understand all about jobs, etc. but it's risky to be that close. Does the OW know where you live? Some of them can be pretty persistent and show up unexpectedly.

Roller Coaster....the anger got the better of me more often than not last week. I am sad to read here that the anger stage can go on for months?

It's a volcano that gives no warning, and if it catches me unawares when I am unable to heed that "two minute" warning to side-track my thoughts...watch out!

I major AO'd H this past weekend. Yes I know it's a LB. No I don't want to LB, but at the time I didn't care.

On Saturday, we had a local MC session and we learned how to use examples to invoke empathy in each other. Very helpful, except that once I started seeing that H was getting the honest remorse part, it seemed to make me more and more angry.

Angry that he can only "get" things when I explain it in a way that he has to think how HE would feel. By Sunday afternoon, I was at the bottom of the roller coaster again, but this time, H did pull me out with genuine care. He did! First time ever! And he was shocked and seemed soooo proud of himself and us!

Yay!! I saw a glimmer of the man that I married. I felt soooo good on Sunday night, so loved, so hopeful...had a pretty good Monday.

And then last night H did a major LB to me. We have EP in place where he is not supposed to drive within a certain parameter of OW house. Well....we were together driving, and what does he do? He drove within three blocks of her house! I did not know the area so well, we were headed to a Lowe's store, and as soon as I realized where we were, I told him to turn around. He did, and he apologized big time. He later said that he had been focused on getting to Lowe's before it closed, and he didn't even think about where we were. True it was going in the back way (not from the freeway exit that her house sits off of). BUT the fact of the matter is that he did it. It totally ruined my night and today hasn't been too hot either.

I feel like this big fat ugly pink elephant is always going to be sitting in our living room, no matter what we do. I realize that I'm feeling sorry for myself at the moment, and it has only been 14 weeks out since D-Day.

H has texted me all day apologizing for his independent behavior...not protecting us, and not keeping me and US front and center in his thoughts at all times. I do believe that he is being sincere, but the fact of the matter is that he did not think. If he did not think when I was WITH him...what does he do when I am not with him?

LWFH, I am totally hearing you now about the proximity to her house, ugh. I do not want to move! We have owned this house for 32 years, it used to be a safe haven for me (I have to admit that since D-Day it doesn't mean the same, but I have been hopeful that the enjoyment of our home will return to me as I heal). On top of that, we would not be able to sell this and buy another home because now H has ruined our credit for the time being.

I KNOW that my M is more important than a house. I hear ya and I am (now) putting more weight to your words for sure. H WAS textbook and I have to remember that. I am just so frigging angry that he put us in this situation.

Tonight we have lots of UA time scheduled, and first thing before we start is that I am going to demand a much larger danger zone (proximity to OW house). Plus I had agreed previously that if H gets a call for work just on the edge of that zone, that he could go as long as he texted to let me know. Nope, not anymore. That zone needs to be a never zone.

I realize that won't fix it if H isn't going to keep to the EP. He has fallen over himself with all other EP. This shocked me and I guess that I still haven't even processed it fully.

You're probably right on the nail. I did always perk up when he got home. I never tired of being with him and chatting in all the years. Probably it was only caring love though, not romantic love, you're right.


I get it. This is not something that I ever pictured that H could handle (the patience part), but he sure does seem to be consistently supportive in spite of my recent AOs. We have had some intense radical honesty like never before, and he has made comments a day or two later to me that showed me that he totally "got" what I shared with him. I can FEEL those huge LB$....but I don't feel love for him even when I feel "nice" from the LB$.


Yes, exactly. He's fine with a hug or a kiss, but I'll ask for him to stop what he is doing and please look me in the eye and tell me why he wants to work through this. I've realized that I tend to SD him about that (didn't realize that until this weekend)...I do tend to tell him that "he never tells me hopeful things" for instance, and then he will respond with "I just told you this morning that I felt hopeful that we can get through this". He's right. He did. I forget from one hour to the next, I really do.

The thing that I ask when I feel like I am falling down the rabbit hole (roller coaster) is for him to respond FAST, think on his feet if he is with me, and help me to cut off that thinking pattern NOW. Instead, he will ask me what I am thinking...that is not going to help. I will again explain how I need to not "open up that file" with the bad mind tapes of the A, and that instead, I need some fast response within two minutes about something positive.

I am slowly getting to the point where I can divert my own mind (sometimes) when I am alone. But when I am with him, I seem to be unable to do so.


Not sure if she knows. H says that he never told her and that she is not computer literate. Anyone could look up the tax info online. I definitely know that if I were her, I sure would have known where the wife lived. Not a peep from her in 14 weeks though, thank God.

blindsighted, you are getting great advice from longwayhome and I just wanted to add my own experience. My H's OW lived in another state and never even set foot in my state. Yet, I felt continual triggers and sadness in my home and other places where I experienced the fallout from his affair. For example, I found out about his affair while I worked at a certain place in Louisiana. Whenever we drove to LA thereafter, I would be triggered. I ALWAYS felt a general feeling of sadness living in that house where I discovered the affair.

When we moved to another city 4 hours, the dark cloud amazingly lifted and our marriage moved into a new, higher realm of happiness.

In your case, it is much worse than this because you will occasionally run into the OW. You will be continually triggered, and more importantly, SO WILL YOUR HUSBAND. That is a disaster waiting to happen. You will recover much faster if you move away from there, I promise.


Oh no, the anger should not go on for *ANY* time. It should end NOW, my friend. Your fragile marriage cannot afford ANY ANGER. If you can't get that under control on your own, I would get on anti-depressants or get anger management training. If you want to wreck the recovery of your marriage, this is how you do it!

Blindsighted, every time you have an angry outburst, it withdraws love units from your account in your H's love bank. He might feel as though he deserves your anger, but it still withdraws love units.

Not only that, but the anger doesn't accomplish anything. It is destructive. I totally get the anger; I was very angry and it hurt our progress. My husband "took" it, but it made him feel terrible. And it made me feel terrible, too. It always brought the past into the present and heaped misery on top of misery.

You might try the ADs again and see if you can get a different prescription. Many people have good results with Wellbutrin, which doesn't affect the libido as some of the others do.

Dr. Harley strongly recommends anger management classes for people who have trouble controlling their temper. He recommends learning how to relax under stress as the way to control it.

I understand moving seems impossible since you have lived in your current house for so long. Yet if you had the prospect of being in love with your H and he with you and no more geographical triggers, it would be worth it, wouldn't it? Personally I wouldn't be able to handle the OW anywhere in the vicinity, never knowing when I or my H might run into her or be in her area.

Like ML, I found that the house we lived in at the time of D-Day was full of triggers. We lived in a beautiful location, but there were many times walking up that staircase of our townhouse made me remember how I felt walking up those stairs when I thought our marriage was going to end. I could be happy downstairs and get upstairs and be in tears. We were sad to leave, but living in a brand new location has been a breath of fresh air.

Further, now that we are in love and are enjoying the best marriage we have ever had, we don't even care where we live or what we own. None of it really seems to matter any more.

Well today I am feeling about a 4 / 10. Better than yesterday. Definitely not as angry.

Last night, H and I made a much larger "never" zone for traveling in the proximity of OW house. Until we move (or not), we will both stick to that. H actually pointed out that her two adult children also live north of her, and so we wayyyy enlarged the no travel zone.

Thank you soooooo much to both of you for your replies. This board has become my go-to for honest experience. Thank you Thank you Thank you.

Melody and LWFH, you both make excellent points about the marriage home leaving a sour taste due to D-Day. I had never thought of it that way before. H would move if I insist, and I will definitely be thinking more on this.

Regarding my anger, Melody, I am listening and appreciate your kind and candid response. LWFH has been telling me the same (over and over). I am trying to deal with it. H and I have both felt that I'm doing a good job of it, but it really sounds like I am not.

I've never had an anger issue in my life and I daresay that perhaps neither of us understands the anger as it relates to MB?

We both were thinking that as long as I don't LoveBust (but yes I did last Sunday), that the anger was normal? And as long as I don't bring up the A, I CAN ask for a hug or help re-routing my mind tapes?

Another issue also with anger, but now H's....H and I were reading HNHN last night and one of the exercises at the end of the chapter told us to take the Personal History Questionnaire. We did, and it triggered H BIG BIG BIG TIME. I haven't seen him so upset in at least 20 years.

The thing that triggered him was the question about the most important sexual experience...it was years ago, and it centered around a black dress that I had worn to a wedding and we had fantastic SF afterward...he loved that dress and apparently had told me so at the time, but I felt fat in it and so I threw it out.

I honestly don't remember him saying anything about it at the time, but I am sure that he did. And this is HUGE to him...

He was SOOOO upset to find out that I'd thrown it out because he says that "represents my total lack of care whether I met his E needs back then". Probably WAY TRUE and so I held him and apologized, but then he suddenly sat up and said that he was soooooo angry, and he kept asking "is this part of the MB program, do we have to do this? Why do we have to talk about this, what purpose will it serve?" I said no of course not, and I changed the subject, but then I could see that HE was having bad mind tapes and so I held him some more and we both got past it.

But my question is....maybe we DO need to bring this up and talk about it? He says that after the dress incident, he had "threatened to have an A". I don't remember that either. But I did read an article that was linked here in MB about memory files, and how the way that we "file" an incident at the time that it happens is usually the way that our memories recall those files years later (even if incorrect). So it realllly doesn't matter if H has the same memory file as I do...the point of the matter is that H is obviously hurting big time, and so I am wondering if we should deal with that hurt?

I am leaving a bunch of H's personal details out here. If you feel they are necessary, I will ask him if he minds my posting them. But I really feel after what I saw last night that this is honestly huge for him. Even if the events are not the same as I remember, he is devastated by his memories of the events, and so what do I do with that?

We do have a local MC. Should we wait do bring it up with him?

Is your H willing to be on the show with the Harleys? Have you written Dr. Harley?

The Personal History Questionnaire is taken so you can know everything about each other that there is to know. It's not used to dredge up all the mistakes of your past. That will make the conversation very very unpleasant.

The angry outbursts you and your H are experiencing are going to have to stop, or your marriage will certainly suffer. You both need to commit to simply STOP the anger in its tracks. Sure, anger is "normal;" but it's NOT healthy to express it by losing one's temper. It's not healthy for your marriage and it will wreck whatever progress you are making.

And I totally get the anger. I was very angry with my H for his betrayal. I felt a physical hurt from it and often wished I could just die. (Often I wished my H would die. Bad, bad times.) It was hard to overcome the anger, but I finally did it by using one of the Conversation worksheets in the Five Steps workbook. I did not want to commit at that time to never having another angry outburst. But I could do it like when I quit smoking. I could go for a morning. Then I could go for the afternoon. Then the evening. Then the next morning, the next afternoon, and so on. That's the way I stopped smoking. That's the way I stopped having AO's.

When you find yourself with crappy thoughts, do something different. Dr. Harley recommends relaxation, so take deep breaths and think of something calming.

Neither of us has had an AO in over a year. No fights, no arguments. Conflicts? Yes, but we POJA everything now. It's really such a tremendously rewarding way to live that we consider it a "new" marriage, in a way.

Don't either of you give yourselves "permission" to have AO's. They will destroy your already broken love for each other.

Hi BrainHurts, thank you for taking the time to post. Neither H nor I are comfortable right now with being on the radio show. We are saving to purchase the online program. We plan to be able to purchase during September, crossing fingers.

LWFH, your suggestion of quitting the AO's one day, or hour, at a time, is helping me. Thank you for that.

We had some skating to do last night when we were paying bills together, and we did manage to be polite and POJA our differences without even a raised blood pressure in either of us.

Neither H nor I have had an AO in ten days. I wish that I could say that I feel better, I guess that it is better, but it is different and perhaps more immediately frustrating for me to stifle my anger whilst I am forcing myself to re-route it.

I have been meditating each day and also exercising. Remember I can't go on AD and so I am realllly having to monitor myself throughout the day to try to keep that "level" mentality. Perhaps I am getting a bit better at noticing that level though.

This still sucks. Each day continues to feel like a nightmare for me. I still go back and forth between wanting to stay and wanting to leave. The pendulum does seem to be swinging for longer though.

I have a rough time being out in public since D-Day. My self esteem is in the garbage. I guess I've been spoiled my entire life because I never doubted myself, even in my teen years. I never had issues with feeling like I fit in. Now I seem to feel "less than" in every way, and seeing even semi-attractive women out in public living their normal lives makes me feel nauseous.

I'm no longer "normal" and I'm no longer attractive in my own mind, and I don't know what to do about that except to give it time.

I lost that that confidence in myself that came with feeling secure in a long-time marriage, kwim?

The fact that H's affair went on for twelve YEARS right under my nose without my having a single clue bowls me over and causes me to realize that I must have been so very pompous and sure of myself. I know that anyone would be bowled over by this, but somehow I don't seem to YET have the facilities within myself to make sense of it. Trusting in this program and having faith that I will get there someday.

An update:

At this point four months in, I am getting how to stifle my stuff by not bringing up the A. Some days it is getting better, and I can function. Other days I am still bitterly burning up inside nearly all day long. Sudden AOs have just come short of slipping out, but so far I've been managing to stifle those too. I've been doing this for almost three weeks now and I KNOW that it is the right thing to do because I am shocked to hear from H that he thinks that "we are making great progress in R".

OH MY GOD, does he NOT know me at all??????? Sometimes it really DOES feel good, and then other times I cringe when he walks into the room. Sometimes he represents the most basic primal ugliest feelings that I've ever had in my 51 years of life. And he doesn't SEE that in me? (I guess that's a good thing)

Until two weeks after D-Day, my eyes always lit up when he walked into the room. I still felt that little heart pitter-patter of excitement even after 33 years of marriage. That is deader than a doornail now. And he doesn't NOTICE???? SERIOUSLY????

He is making great progress in being aware of my EN, but many times I am still totally closed to H, I know that I am withdrawn, and sometimes I still contemplate D with utter disgust at what "he" nuked and then scattered it all over the roadside as he went on his merry way. For TWELVE YEARS.

This past weekend, we had some good UA time. We had lots of IC, great RC, and a bit of Affection and SF. It makes a big difference in how I view things.

We finally saved up enough $ for the $397 MB course, and we will now start saving up the difference to add the coaching and the weekend boards (probably another 4-5 months of saving). We began those this past weekend, and that was nice also. H was very involved, and we had lots of IC after each module.

Next post will be a bit of a vent because I know that I can use these forums to spout my emotions, rather than fling them at H.

Blindsighted,

Thank you for updating us. I had been wondering how you were doing.

Everything you are going through is perfectly (horribly) normal for your stage of recovery. It sounds like you are doing a great job stifling the instinctive reactive negative emotions.

I told myself that I would give recovery six months to see how things went, then another six months. As long as I could see progress in the marriage, I was encouraged enough to continue for a while longer. I gave myself permission to consider leaving and even had a mental plan prepared in case that's what I decided.

Have your H's habits and your lifestyle together changed radically so that there is NO possibility of the A, or any A, starting up again? Do you have all his passwords? Does he account for all his time? Do you have a GPS on his vehicle, so that you know where he is at all times? Since his affair went on for a long time while you were living together, these steps would be necessary to keep your lives together very transparent.

It's very hopeful that you have the home study course. Make sure you continue to spend at least 20 - 25 hours a week together meeting those four intimate ENs and avoiding all LBs. The importance of the UA time together can't be overstated in restoring your marriage.

I'm so sorry you are having to endure this pain. It's going to take a minimum of two years to learn to trust that your H cares for you and about you and to get over your resentment of the betrayal. Time is against you now, but, if you keep following the MB program, a day at a time, one day you will look back at these days and you will feel a lot better about where your marriage is. You will be in love with your H again.

I DO worry for my health. I just had ovarian cancer surgery a year ago and this hell stress is not good for me. I don't want to chuck my 33 yr M, and so I am forcing myself to do the MB plan. We both do agree with it. But honestly, this stifling of my emotions is taking its toll...on the other hand, I DO see that if I want my M, there is no other option.

We plan to give it one more month without ADs....my doctor does not want to prescribe due to trouble that I've had in the past with them. H and I have decided that if by the middle of next month, my stomach is not feeling better (my surgery site is driving me nuts since D-day and I've already seen the oncologist to verify that cancer has not returned....it is from stress and my inners not having totally healed when D-day hit), then I will go to a psychiatrist and hopefully get ADs that way.

Posting here rather than railing at H about this....here is where I am with not talking about the A now: It is absolutely driving me bonkers that he did this on and off for TWELVE years. After four months now of thinking on it, I could (almost) accept the "insanity" plea that he kept giving me after D-Day.

Yes, we now know that the reason that he did it is that we weren't meeting each other's needs and that we had no EP in place to protect us.

He says that he doesn't know why he did it except that he was a selfish raging idiot and didn't give any thought to his family (NONE of his family...he admits that he took care of HER kids' cars, etc. while leaving OUR kids on their own...he fixed HER house and her KIDS houses while he let ours fall apart). But HOW DOES one stay "insane" for twelve y-e-a-r-s?

They had sex for two years late 1999 to mid 2001. He says that it was intense and that if I had discovered it then, yes he may have left me because of how great it felt. Then the novelty wore off (according to him) and they stopped seeing each other. He told me that he felt awful and tried to tell me about it a few times. Then she called him out of the blue in 2007 and he went running back and ended up in her bed (duh). WHY did he go back? Well I know why he went back, obviously, but that means that the insanity was still there if he could start it up again at the drop of a pin.

Yes, again, we realize no EP in place. We both realize how utterly reckless that we were with something so precious as our M. But still, I focus on the logistics of IT.

Then no sex after that, so he claims, but still kisses and hugs. I am not sure that I believe that. And the "interesting" thing is that he says that he was soooo fogged then that he really thinks that he loved me during this time and that he wanted our relationship back....although he did NOTHING to attempt to get it back. He claims that from 2007 until 2013, they talked about each other's days. Saw each other a couple of times a month, usually when she needed something done on her house (makes me wanna puke), and otherwise talked on the phone an average of 1.5 hours per DAY. Bull-pucky. It may not be bull-pucky about the sex/no sex thing, don't know, but it sure as heck is Bull-Pucky that he loved me one bit during that time.

The day that I confronted him, he lied straight to my face with the "just friends" thing. 1-5 days later (I can't remember), he told me the whole story. He gained credibility with me because I did my own surveillance and had not discovered anything going on prior to 2007, and HE told me about that. That revelation is what ended up causing me to decide to try to save the M. I committed to one day at a time.

He kept telling me that he had no feelings left for her, instead it was his "comfort zone", but that he didn't know how to get out. It was a habit that he couldn't break. He kept saying that he needed some "direction" and that the day after D-Day it all hit him like a ton of bricks. I've read of WS stories on here where they claim to have felt trapped. No disrespect meant to WS who are trying to face their own memories of events, but HOW is that possible?

He did go NC immediately after the truth revelation to me. He has made comments to me that it feels so much better now to have his life back. He claims that for the last six years, he has contemplated suicide more than once because he knew that he had destroyed his life for nothing. And yet he "couldn't get out" ???? How does one have those feelings and yet choose not to change the situation that they are in?

He could have ended it when he found out that I had cancer. He could have started being attentive to me again, and I would have believed that it was because of my close health call...and I would never have known about his A. <----THIS IS THE POSSIBLE DEAL BREAKER FOR ME

He didn't do that. Instead, according to phone records, he called her exactly 13 minutes after he left my hospital room on the day of my surgery. AND....he claims that she didn't know anything about my cancer...that they just talked about her day when he called. OMG....your wife just avoided bleeding out and dying on the table, and you call to ask about HER day?????

I keep reading the MB forums to gain sanity, and it helps. But my own emotions seems to keep over-riding the calm and sane approach that is offered here. This stuff doesn't make SENSE. For four months now, he has made every possible effort to focus on the future, and on US. He went NC, put a GPS on his phone, texts me when he gets to and leaves work, puts me first before his Mom and friends (he never did that before), we POJA anything that bothers either of us, we are working the MB program, UA time over 30 hours per week, he says I Love Yous all through the day....but I am still miserable because I don't BELIEVE IT. Maybe it's more honest to say that I don't trust it?

He is willing for us to move if I decide that is what I want. I don't yet want to do that...BUT I do realize that you all are correct and it is Trigger City here. So....we have committed to taking a couple of weekend getaways coming up soon, and ALSO we are trying to save for weeks away in another state during the winter.

With my job, I can work anywhere that I want to. But it will be a matter of saving the $ for a condo to rent out of state for a month or so. H can work for me during our time away, and so we will only lose about 1/4 of his normal income during that time. So we will give that a trial, just renting a place and seeing how I feel. That gives me some hope to look forward to that...but we are going to save for the coaching part of the MB first (I called when we bought the online program, and they said that we could upgrade to the coaching once we have saved the money), so that will still be a while yet.

Our finances and our house and cars are so messed up because of this (H had been ignoring all finances for months prior to D-day), that everything is going to be slow going. It took us four months to save up the $397 for the online MB program. I get SOOOOOO angry that at 51 years old, I am having to force myself to have patience about money stuff and about home and car repairs....we had to work our way up when we were young, and we worked hard and we were debt free in 1997. Now THIS? Because the house of cards was falling down for HIM and he still didn't have the Xalls to come and talk to me, but instead hid the state of our finances until everything was almost gone....it WOULD have been gone if I hadn't discovered the A....he obviously WAS going to keep his mouth shut until there wasn't a penny left...okay yes, THAT was a vent.

It is disgusting that it took four months at this stage in our lives to save up for the MB program....BUT WE DID IT. So I'm thinking that I need to focus on that. Slow and steady but we ARE moving forward. My focusing on the crap is not going to make me feel better. I do get that. It's just not so easy to accomplish. THANK YOU all for being there (and thank you to anyone who actually got to the end of this post, haha!).

Thank you LongWay, your posts always feel so calming. I appreciate the compliment too, it means a lot and motivates me to keep going.


Pretty much what I am doing also, except that I haven't been setting $ aside to leave. I figure if it does come to that, he has to leave our home, and then I can spend three months working my butt off to get myself flush with finances. For right now, I am choosing to put every available dime of my income into saving our M finances (he had already been sued by one creditor and about a dozen others were/are lining up, ugh ugh ugh).


Yes, we have EP in place. I have all passwords, all of his time accounted for even stopping to buy gas, GPS on his phone and I track him during the day, I check his texts every night or two, for now he does not go anywhere alone except for work.

Our local MC has said that he has confidence that H is empathetic and is working harder than anyone he has seen to change his life. I have to agree...but I do realize that MCs aren't God and that we must do the MB program to safeguard our new M. H still messes up with IB...I posted already about some of it, and there have been other instances. When it happens, we POJA and he says that he gets it how it was IB, and he does make a genuine effort to change that behavior.


oh yes, definitely getting the UA time. It's not perfect. We have a habit of talking about work stuff, and he is having to learn to be more affectionate. I have a problem with thinking about IT and then not talking (so that I don't AO him).


THANK YOU LongWay! Your hope and your sharing your experience helps a TON!!!

Blindsighted2013,

The reason your H had an affair was because he did not protect himself from an affair. If a person doesn't protect oneself from having an affair, that person is almost sure to have one, because they are SO common. Please do not beat yourself up about needs not being met. It may be true that you and he could have been doing more, but there are plenty of marriages in which all the needs WERE being met, and an affair happened anyway, because one or both were not following EPs. Your husband did not protect his love bank and allowed OW to meet one or more needs.

At the same time, though, you more than likely, were still meeting some of his ENs, including SF, which kept his love bank with you from depleting. It really IS possible to be in love with two people. It does NOT mean that there is CARE, but there is the feeling of being in love. Dr. Harley has said that men can swing this duality more easily than women can because of the man's ability to compartmentalize.

Infidelity is an addiction, very much like being on heroin or an alcoholic. There are chemical reactions in the brain that are exactly the same. The same feelings of euphoria and thrill, the increasing risk in order to get it. Have you heard of stories of drug-addicted people doing the most shameful things just to get their fix? The adulterer is doing the same thing. There are times they will feel great shame at what they are doing, but then they figure out some way to justify what they are doing and the fog rolls back in.

I tried and tried to make sense of what my H had done, and someone pointed out very kindly to me that I was trying to fit my H's irrational and horrible actions in some sort of a rational paradigm. And it WILL NOT FIT. There is no way one can rationalize this.

Your H was indeed trapped by his addiction. He wanted to get out of it at times, but he simply did not have the will power it would take to break away from the powerful addiction of having two women meeting ALL his needs.

So you've had ovarian surgery? Are you on hormone replacement at all? I was doing just great with menopause until last year, due to feeling extraordinarily down, not to mention a curious and troubling drop in libido, and it turned out to be very low testosterone levels. Off the chart at the bottom low. Low testosterone can cause depression-like symptoms which are often treated with ADs, which actually makes the problem worse.

Do you and your H listen to the radio show? Listening to the Harleys is a great education on marriage-building.

Thank you LongWay, you make a lot of good (and calming) points again. Truthfully we were having trouble meeting each other's needs at that point.

Our youngest daughter had lupus and I felt like H had dropped the ball providing any help in caring for her (she is doing great now). He wanted SF without any care in helping me to go to bed early to be with him and relax, and that did create an aversion for me (we see that now).

SF is fantastic now, and it has been fantastic since our youngest flew out of the nest, I think 2008. Well...sometimes not fantastic when I have mind tapes now, but I trust that we will get past that.

I hear ya on the addiction thing. I needed to be reminded, thank you. I am going to concentrate and give this whole addiction side some more thought.

I had a radical hysterectomy and debulking surgery (basically they pull all of your organs out and inspect for cancer along with taking biopsies). I had 39 spots tested for cancer, and it only came back positive in one spot thank God. But until two weeks after surgery, I did not know if I would be facing chemo, etc. Plus because of the extreme surgery, it took me about 8 months before I felt human again. I was just getting back to exercise, etc, when D-Day hit.

Doc says that my pain is because my intestines etc hadn't totally healed and then I went on the "infidelity diet" LOL and made it all worse.

No hormone replacement for me because of my cancer. I am doing okay though with the hot flashes, etc. My libido did not suffer. Many women do have trouble after the same surgery. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), my gyn/oncologist really isn't as concerned with my sex life as he is with keeping me alive, so he is not one to approve of taking any hormones after cancer.

Oh dear, LWFH, were you on ADs when you recently suffered this drop in energy and libido? How are you doing with things now? I know that this goes without saying, but exercise helps a ton. Even walking, anything 20 minutes of getting my heart rate up just a bit (doesn't have to be intense at all) keeps my menopause symptoms at bay. And they say that diet (whole foods) helps too...but I don't stick to that too perfectly here.

I was not on ADs at the time. Recovery was rolling along famously, except that in the last year or so, my libido dropped dramatically, and I couldn't understand why. Then we moved to this new area last summer. It was much much hotter than I was used to so at first I thought it was the heat or the move.

I ran across an article about testosterone in men and how it affects their libido and wondered if the same was true for women. I started researching it in great detail and found a lot of very helpful information that I had in hand when I found a doctor, who had me tested for all hormone levels. After about a month on a compounded low-dosage testosterone cream, I started feeling better emotionally, but it took a higher dosage to help with the libido. I'm quite pleased with the results so far.

You sound like an intelligent woman with a lot going for you. You've had a very difficult year both physically with your radical surgery and emotionally with D-Day. You might think about calling the Harleys for their take on your situation. They have so much to offer and are so helpful. It's best if you can call in rather than just go through email, so you can have a conversation. They can also conference in with your H, if your H is willing. Email with your telephone number and a brief summary to mbradio@marriagebuilders.com.