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When a WW does something she would not do for her BH. Though did it willingly for the OM. That sends a message that says WW actions are speaking louder then her words. That the WW for whatever reason put has put the OM as number one and BH in second place.
It sends a message that she degraded herself by doing something that she did not like doing, for what she hoped was his love (but deep down doubted). It sends a message that she knew that OM wanted her for sex, and would have dumped her if it hadn't been given to his satisfaction.
The reason she degraded herself was to get the conversation, attention and flattery that she craved. While the affair was on, she kidded herself that OM loved and respected her, but when the BH found out about the affair, she saw herself for the cheap tramp that she had been. She behaved like a whore but wasn't even smart enough to get paid. When the affair was revealed and OM did not come beating down her door to take her away from her H, and instead stayed in the shadows, she faced up to how low she had stooped and was humiliated.
She does not want to now be reminded that she was a whore, and a foolish one at that, by recreating her affair in your bedroom. Surely that's not hard to see.
This "you did it for him; now you can do it for me" reasoning is poison to a marriage that is attempting recovery. You can't expect either of you to recover if you bring her affair into your sex lives.
I am not for forcing the WW to do something distasteful.
When a WW does something she would not do for her BH. Though did it willingly for the OM. That sends a message that says WW actions are speaking louder then her words. That the WW for whatever reason put has put the OM as number one and BH in second place.
The WW made the OM feel special, at least in the BH's eyes. How else is the BH to feel when she gave the OM willingly and freely yet outright refuses to do the same for her BH?
How does the WW justify doing less for her BH?
Giving this message repeatedly to your (or Gamma's) FWW when she has said she does not want to do whatever it is, is attempting to force her to do what you want. You are not physically making her do it, but you are putting pressure on her to do it. Dr Harley advises very strongly against putting pressure on your spouse, and against putting pressure on women to perform sexual acts that they dislike.
My point was to try and make you see that if you (or Gamma) succeed in making her do it, you probably won't feel good about it and she DEFINITELY won't feel good about it, and this will harm your marriage.
You will get your short-term victory if you pressurise her until she gives in, but the victory will be a pyrrhic one.
I am not saying that gamma should keep hounding his WW for the same SF that she gave the OM. I have said gamma would be better off contacting Dr H many times.
Please re read what you have quoted and discuss how a BH is not to feel that his WW has made him number 2.
How is a WW to think that her BH would be ok with getting less then the OM?
At the minimum a WW must tell her BH why she will not do for him what she did for the OM. The WW stating I do not want to, or a simple no is not an acceptable answer.
A WW doing something for the OM. Then refusing to do it for the BH sends a negative message about her BH.
How can a WW not see this?
A BH says to recover I have to accept that the SF between the OM and my WW can never be undone. To expect it to happen would be unrealistic. A BH whether he wants to recover or divorce can not deny this.
Many a BH want to reclaim their WW. As we know reclaiming can and will cover many things including SF. So to deny a BH what the WW did with the OM is the WW denying her BH reclaiming what he needs to recover.
The phrase just compensation does not mesh with the BH has to accept that the OM got more then him in the SF department then he ever got before the affair and never will get post affair from his WW.
So to recover the BH has to accept being second place.
As to I just think of the OM as a brother. Another example of trickle truth.
The story morphs every time it is told, this is why asking OM2 and others offers a way to end this decades long trickle truth. There are WWs who would need photo graphic evidence and even then claim retouching.
Did you expect your WW upon seeing the OM again to recall and tell you the fun times, hot sex, and how the OM2 still makes my undergarments wet just seeing the OM again and remembering all those things.
Might explain why I was a husband, provider, father, handyman, companion, but not her lover in our marriage.
Oddly enough I might never have gone down this path had I never blundered into MB, and my W thinks we would have been divorced already.
Perhaps not, one of the sadder things I hear Dr Harley say to BHs who call in is, "your WW may NEVER have been in love with you", I think he said that to "fightthefight".
I still don't understand what you want to find out from these people. I asked you before what you wanted to know from this pre-marriage OM, but I didn't understand your answer.
Simply put the truth, or whatever OMs version of it is, if his answer is that they had sex then I can use that to pry out more details from my W. Who knows perhaps OM saved love letters he might be willing to part with.
Are you hoping to ask these people whether this man had oral sex with your wife?
No, but OM would have bragged about who he bagged to his coworkers. Again I'm not focused on oral sex, this is getting to be like the Arthur Two sheds Jackson sketch.
So, I walk through town, watching other women get what I want, as a matter of course.
It kills me to see kissing in a movie or whatever, I can't even get an answer about why kissing is never initiated by W, except when she feels guilty.
For many of us, I think, there IS an element of sacrifice to staying with a spouse after an affair. For some things, to borrow from Porsche, there is no substitute.
And the thing that differs in long term or long buried affairs is that there is a sum of sacrifice that accumulates in proportion to the number of years it has gone on.
H does not want to drink/talk with me because HE DOESN'T ENJOY DOING THOSE THINGS WITH ME. He enjoyed them with the OW because she had (has? - I'm assuming she's still living) qualities I do not have.
Just as Mrs. Gamma, perhaps, enjoyed OS with another man (men?) because the OP, due many variables, made it enjoyable.
The WS stops talking sometimes to "spare our feelings" but it tends to make it worse.
One of the variables you speak of which may have made OM2 so powerfully attractive to W was that she was in the fog of new love, something I've not experienced since I met my W.
I'll have to ask my W, but I don't think she ever felt that there was any danger of my becoming emotionally attached to someone else during the entire length of our marriage. I do resent that I've given her emotional stability, security and approval while I've felt that she could drop me at any time.
You say your wife's story morphs every time, with new trickle truth. Is this in response to your questions? How many times for how long have you kept asking her questions about her affairs? Can you go six months without asking these questions, without dwelling on her "insincere sex", without demands or disrespect? Do you encourage her to be open with you about your Lovebusters to her? Do you change what you do based on this?
How long did you spend looking up all those people on Facebook? Could you spend the same amount of time and mental effort in writing your problems and complaints to Dr. Harley? Why are you ignoring this valuable resource? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, as Joyce says. You can get a 30-40 minute session - for free!
xFWW(me)-48 Married-14 years D-Day~23-May-11 NC- 14-Apr-11 1 DS 15 Online course July '11 to July '12 17 sessions with S. Harley Feb '12 to Sep '12 Divorced Jan 21, 2013
This approaches the concept I've raise on one - no, two - other threads, that of the "minimal acceptable marriage" or m.a.m. The idea is that a given union, due to, let's say, the tepid participation of one spouse, has no spark, no vibrancy, no passion. If that spouse (typically) will not participate in the MB Program, what is the protocol for the other spouse to re-evaluate the benefits of remaining in that bad marriage, or taking steps to leaving it?
It seems that taking those steps appears (perhaps rightfully so) so daunting that they are NEVER actuated. It may be that those long-regretted vows are sufficient glue to hold the dissatisfied spouse in place - "It may be a BAD marriage, but it is MY marriage!" - or it may be the hope that somehow, someday, something will change, or it may be the intrusion of progeny/family obligations make moving on unfeasible.
Sadly, the theorem holds: One person can destroy a marriage, but it takes two people to improve a marriage!"
So, BV and G, assuming the status remains quo in your marriages - no wine for BV, no oral sex for G - do you plan to stay?
Please re read what you have quoted and discuss how a BH is not to feel that his WW has made him number 2.
I can see that no explanation or argument will change some men's feelings that they are number two, if they are in a situation where their wives will not do certain things with them, and their explanation for this refusal is not acceptable to the BH. I could say anything to you and no matter how convincing it might sound to someone else, it isn't going to convince you.
I'm not sure whether the "number 2 position" is your feeling personally, TheRoad, because I am not quite clear whether you know your wife did things with OM and you cannot get her to do them with you, or whether you just don't know what they did because you don't know anything about the affair - not even who OM in your marriage was.
I can only say that from my experience as a BW, I was dogged in needing to know all sorts of details about the affair, but for me, these were details about how he had conducted the affair, how they managed to be together and go away together, and how much and in what ways he continued to lie to me after my numerous D Days.
I took it as given that the sex was the best he had ever had, because I could work out that the conditions of any affair must produce these feelings. Dr Harley has said something to the effect that most affair partners will tell him that the sex was the best they had ever had, and he believes that it must have been. This is not, he said, because of the sexual acts themselves but because of the context. Long before I heard him say that on the radio, I believed that to be the case for my own H. At the time when we used to fight about the affair, I never asked him whether that was true because I "knew" (in my own head) that it was true. I did not need to humiliate myself by hearing him confirm that to me, and and I wouldn't have believed him if he'd told me otherwise.
I can only tell you that today, I don't feel second best to anybody; not in any aspect of what makes me me, and certainly not in terms of sex.
I realise that my H might still today think that the sex during the affair was the best of his life, but I don't care if he does. The sex during our marriage today is of a quality that makes him desire me often, and he pays me the utmost care and attention, and shows me much love and "lovingness", when it happens, so I am not going to spare any part of my brain to actively thinking about how it ranks alongside sex with her.
Like the poster brokenvase, I found out details about their conduct during the affair that hurt me. For example, that they sent sexy texts often during the day and definitely every single night before going to bed. They emailed frequently, and spoke on the phone every day, sometimes for over an hour. All this took place either at work, or on his work-provided mobile phone that he told me he only used when he was abroad, to ring the office.
As our courtship had taken place long before the days of email and mobile phones, I had never had a sexy text from my H (and I still don't have a mobile phone, so I couldn't get one even today. Neither does he have a mobile phone any longer). We didn't have a computer in the house so the only email address I had ever used was my work one, and I have never used that to send sexy emails to my H, as I think that would be inappropriate. I was quite shocked to find out that he was using his work email address to send sexy emails to her.
He bought her a ring, when she asked him to buy her a present "because we've been together for months now and you haven't bought me anything" (according to the account given to me by her H). She took him to the jewellers and picked out a ring that her H said (after he demanded it from her) looked like an engagement ring. I never had an engagement ring, and I have never been bought a ring since my wedding ring, so she has something there that I never had.
They were both able to travel around Europe in their jobs, so they could each tell their spouse that they were travelling for work, while really travelling to meet the other person. So, OW spent nights alone in hotels rooms with my H, which I hadn't done since we'd had our first child 14 years earlier. Additionally, they travelled to some places that I had never been to, such as the lovely city of Lisbon in Portugal, which my H had, before marriage, described as one of his favourite cities. It hurt that I'd never been there.
There were things like that that they'd done that I had never done, and some that I probably won't ever do. Those things for me were for a long time like the sexual things seem to be for some BHs. They were things that I resented that he'd done with her and not me. So, if you can accept the comparability, I have some understanding of the feelings of resentment about specific things they did.
Today, however, I don't feel that those specific things that they did that we never did are an issue for my own self-esteem, or feelings of esteem within the marriage. There is resentment still about the affair as a whole, because it was a long one (a 5-year EA, conducted by telephone from his workplace, continued after he stopped travelling and the meetings between them ended, so it was 8 years in total), and because it included multiple D Days and continued lying and cruel gaslighting to me. But the issue of feeling second best, which is really an issue of self-esteem, has long gone.
This is due to many things; to the fact that my H dropped her and ran every time either I or her H found out about the affair; that doesn't say a lot about how much he valued her. (It doesn't say very much about his character then, either.) It is due to the fact that he seemed never to have planned to leave me, and did what Dr H said and begged me to take him back; to the fact that our kids have grown up and he could be gone, and yet he is here; it is due to the way that he treats me on a daily basis, which is loving and caring; and to the transparency and EPs that he willingly practices.
You are saying that for some BHs, the marriage and the BH cannot recover if the FWW does not give JC in the form of the acts that she did for the OM. I can only say that in my experience, my marriage is recovering and so I do not want JC in the form of doing what they used to do together. In fact, I can't think of anything worse than focusing on what they did. He took the sex that he could from her, knowing that she was putting out because she craved the romance and attention that he gave her. He had no intention of giving that romance to her out in the open, for life, alongside the commitments of paying her mortgage, becoming stepparent to her kids, paying the bills, mowing the lawn and meeting her boring parents every Sunday. He gave her the romance to get the sex, and she gave him the sex to get the romance. He used her badly, and she willingly became his whore, and she fell in love and left her H, and my H dumped her and would not leave me. It is too sordid for words, and I have long since stopped wanting to do anything that they did, or seeing his doing those things for me as JC.
Why on earth would I compare myself and my marriage to her and their affair, and why, if I did that, would I see myself as second best? Excuse me - that is unthinkable! I am incomparable to all that! I only want what I can build with my H from now on, and I do not waste my time wishing I had what she'd had. She has ruined her marriage and trashed her reputation, and I don't see how she can look at herself today and feel self-respect, and I feel nothing but pity for her.
My self respect is not in question. I haven't done anything within my marriage to feel ashamed of, and much, as a wife and mother, to feel proud of.
I'm not sure that telling you my strategy will help you or Gamma, but as I said, I'm not sure what will. I can only reiterate my experience that for me, progress along the path of recovery made the specifics of what they did recede further and further away.
Finally, my views of Gamma's strategy would be different if we were talking about an affair during the marriage that he was being denied details about. This is an infidelity from before they were married, which he was aware of and wiped the debt away by marrying his wife. This central concern of this whole thread is incomprehensible to me. What a waste of time and a life.
Perhaps not, one of the sadder things I hear Dr Harley say to BHs who call in is, "your WW may NEVER have been in love with you", I think he said that to "fightthefight".
God Bless Gamma
Yes, it is sad. But I also believe Dr. Harley has stated that even this is fixable. Dr. Harley has had success creating romantic love in marriages even where none has existed from the very beginning of the marriage.
The way to do this is to follow the program, focusing especially on UA time and meeting EN's, while avoiding AO's and LB's that erode romantic love.
I don't see you expressing any willingness to do this Gamma. In fact, you insist on continuing to do things that are almost certain to destroy any romantic love your wife might be feeling for you.
Why don't you just give the program a try?
How is your UA time?
What are your wife's top EN's and what are you doing to meet them?
Me: BS/FWW: 48 BS/WH: 50 DS: 30, 27, 25 DD: 28 OC: 10 BH and I are raising my OC together.
Finally, my views of Gamma's strategy would be different if we were talking about an affair during the marriage that he was being denied details about. This is an infidelity from before they were married, which he was aware of and wiped the debt away by marrying his wife. This central concern of this whole thread is incomprehensible to me. What a waste of time and a life.
QFT
Me: BS/FWW: 48 BS/WH: 50 DS: 30, 27, 25 DD: 28 OC: 10 BH and I are raising my OC together.
Gamma is not the first or only BH to want what the OM got in the SF department. Specially when he never ever got it from his WW.
**EDIT**
This is not consistent with Dr H's advice and is dangerous for the marriage. A BH pressuring a FWW until she gives in and gives him that act that she does not want to do in her marriage is punishment, which plays no part in recovery. Also, in forcing a wife to do what she finds distasteful (pardon the pun) is setting her up for a sexual aversion, which is the last thing a BH (or any H) needs in his marriage.
Road, do you honestly believe that if you were to tell your wife "do XXX" for me because you did it for him", and she hated doing it but did it, that you would feel good? Really, would that make you feel happier?
I am not for forcing the WW to do something distasteful.
When a WW does something she would not do for her BH. Though did it willingly for the OM. That sends a message that says WW actions are speaking louder then her words. That the WW for whatever reason put has put the OM as number one and BH in second place.
The WW made the OM feel special, at least in the BH's eyes. How else is the BH to feel when she gave the OM willingly and freely yet outright refuses to do the same for her BH?
How does the WW justify doing less for her BH?
It is quite possible that the WW did things in the affair that she didn't actually like. Just because she was abused during the A should not condemn her to abuse in the M. She is free at any time to express her lack of enthusiasm over anything, and her H should respect her choice. That is the essence of POJA.
me-65 wife-61 married for 40 years DS - 38, autistic, lives at home DD - 37, married and on her own DS - 32, still living with us
What you wrote is absolutely fantastic! If that isn't convincing and showing a clear path, then nothing is.
xFWW(me)-48 Married-14 years D-Day~23-May-11 NC- 14-Apr-11 1 DS 15 Online course July '11 to July '12 17 sessions with S. Harley Feb '12 to Sep '12 Divorced Jan 21, 2013
Gamma is not the first or only BH to want what the OM got in the SF department. Specially when he never ever got it from his WW.
**EDIT**
This is not consistent with Dr H's advice and is dangerous for the marriage. A BH pressuring a FWW until she gives in and gives him that act that she does not want to do in her marriage is punishment, which plays no part in recovery. Also, in forcing a wife to do what she finds distasteful (pardon the pun) is setting her up for a sexual aversion, which is the last thing a BH (or any H) needs in his marriage.
Road, do you honestly believe that if you were to tell your wife "do XXX" for me because you did it for him", and she hated doing it but did it, that you would feel good? Really, would that make you feel happier?
I am not for forcing the WW to do something distasteful.
When a WW does something she would not do for her BH. Though did it willingly for the OM. That sends a message that says WW actions are speaking louder then her words. That the WW for whatever reason put has put the OM as number one and BH in second place.
The WW made the OM feel special, at least in the BH's eyes. How else is the BH to feel when she gave the OM willingly and freely yet outright refuses to do the same for her BH?
How does the WW justify doing less for her BH?
It is quite possible that the WW did things in the affair that she didn't actually like. Just because she was abused during the A should not condemn her to abuse in the M. She is free at any time to express her lack of enthusiasm over anything, and her H should respect her choice. That is the essence of POJA.
Comes down she loved the OM so she did it to make the OM happy.
She does not do it to make her BH happy so that leaves a BH to draw a conclusion of how he stands when the WW compares him to the OM.
May be the wrong conclusion. Hard to convince a BH that there were other conclusions to chose from. Harder to convince the BH that his conclusion is wrong.
Sure, they do. Some name it "entitlement." Even if all was given as BH wants, she will not finally earn her BH's care back because she is only giving what is due, after all - from the point of view of entitlement.
xFWW(me)-48 Married-14 years D-Day~23-May-11 NC- 14-Apr-11 1 DS 15 Online course July '11 to July '12 17 sessions with S. Harley Feb '12 to Sep '12 Divorced Jan 21, 2013
SugarCane I can see that no explanation or argument will change some men's feelings that they are number two, if they are in a situation where their wives will not do certain things with them, and their explanation for this refusal is not acceptable to the BH. I could say anything to you and no matter how convincing it might sound to someone else, it isn't going to convince you.
Convince her BH.
I'm not sure whether the "number 2 position" is your feeling personally, TheRoad, because I am not quite clear whether you know your wife did things with OM and you cannot get her to do them with you, or whether you just don't know what they did because you don't know anything about the affair - not even who OM in your marriage was.
I do not know who the OM is and trickle truth for over 25 years. Very little has been revealed. She refuses to talk about it at all any more. For 30+ years not knowing has kept me from leaving that time in the past.
I can only say that from my experience as a BW, I was dogged in needing to know all sorts of details about the affair, but for me, these were details about how he had conducted the affair, how they managed to be together and go away together, and how much and in what ways he continued to lie to me after my numerous D Days.
I want to know from how they meet to how it ended and everything in between. Everything. Yes I know you can not unhear an answer. Think first, ask second.
I took it as given that the sex was the best he had ever had, because I could work out that the conditions of any affair must produce these feelings. Dr Harley has said something to the effect that most affair partners will tell him that the sex was the best they had ever had, and he believes that it must have been. This is not, he said, because of the sexual acts themselves but because of the context. Long before I heard him say that on the radio, I believed that to be the case for my own H. At the time when we used to fight about the affair, I never asked him whether that was true because I "knew" (in my own head) that it was true. I did not need to humiliate myself by hearing him confirm that to me, and and I wouldn't have believed him if he'd told me otherwise.
I can only tell you that today, I don't feel second best to anybody; not in any aspect of what makes me me, and certainly not in terms of sex.
I realise that my H might still today think that the sex during the affair was the best of his life, but I don't care if he does. The sex during our marriage today is of a quality that makes him desire me often, and he pays me the utmost care and attention, and shows me much love and "lovingness", when it happens, so I am not going to spare any part of my brain to actively thinking about how it ranks alongside sex with her.
Like the poster brokenvase, I found out details about their conduct during the affair that hurt me. For example, that they sent sexy texts often during the day and definitely every single night before going to bed. They emailed frequently, and spoke on the phone every day, sometimes for over an hour. All this took place either at work, or on his work-provided mobile phone that he told me he only used when he was abroad, to ring the office.
As our courtship had taken place long before the days of email and mobile phones, I had never had a sexy text from my H (and I still don't have a mobile phone, so I couldn't get one even today. Neither does he have a mobile phone any longer). We didn't have a computer in the house so the only email address I had ever used was my work one, and I have never used that to send sexy emails to my H, as I think that would be inappropriate. I was quite shocked to find out that he was using his work email address to send sexy emails to her.
He bought her a ring, when she asked him to buy her a present "because we've been together for months now and you haven't bought me anything" (according to the account given to me by her H). She took him to the jewellers and picked out a ring that her H said (after he demanded it from her) looked like an engagement ring. I never had an engagement ring, and I have never been bought a ring since my wedding ring, so she has something there that I never had.
Natural to give and get gifts during an affair. Within a BS right that all gifts received be thrown out. As to getting a ring. If getting a bigger better ring is going to make the BW happy then her WH has to get one for his BW. Sight of any ring makes the BW then no matter how much a WH feels he needs to get one for his BW he is not allowed to because a ring will be a constant reminder of the OW for the BW.
They were both able to travel around Europe in their jobs, so they could each tell their spouse that they were travelling for work, while really travelling to meet the other person. So, OW spent nights alone in hotels rooms with my H, which I hadn't done since we'd had our first child 14 years earlier. Additionally, they travelled to some places that I had never been to, such as the lovely city of Lisbon in Portugal, which my H had, before marriage, described as one of his favourite cities. It hurt that I'd never been there.
So go to Lisbon if you can afford it. Many a BS go and reclaim affair places. To much of a trigger then never go.
There were things like that that they'd done that I had never done, and some that I probably won't ever do. Those things for me were for a long time like the sexual things seem to be for some BHs. They were things that I resented that he'd done with her and not me. So, if you can accept the comparability, I have some understanding of the feelings of resentment about specific things they did.
Have you asked your WH to do those things with you?
Today, however, I don't feel that those specific things that they did that we never did are an issue for my own self-esteem, or feelings of esteem within the marriage. There is resentment still about the affair as a whole, because it was a long one (a 5-year EA, conducted by telephone from his workplace, continued after he stopped travelling and the meetings between them ended, so it was 8 years in total), and because it included multiple D Days and continued lying and cruel gaslighting to me. But the issue of feeling second best, which is really an issue of self-esteem, has long gone.
This is due to many things; to the fact that my H dropped her and ran every time either I or her H found out about the affair; that doesn't say a lot about how much he valued her. (It doesn't say very much about his character then, either.) It is due to the fact that he seemed never to have planned to leave me, and did what Dr H said and begged me to take him back; to the fact that our kids have grown up and he could be gone, and yet he is here; it is due to the way that he treats me on a daily basis, which is loving and caring; and to the transparency and EPs that he willingly practices.
You are saying that for some BHs, the marriage and the BH cannot recover if the FWW does not give JC in the form of the acts that she did for the OM. I can only say that in my experience, my marriage is recovering and so I do not want JC in the form of doing what they used to do together. In fact, I can't think of anything worse than focusing on what they did. He took the sex that he could from her, knowing that she was putting out because she craved the romance and attention that he gave her. He had no intention of giving that romance to her out in the open, for life, alongside the commitments of paying her mortgage, becoming stepparent to her kids, paying the bills, mowing the lawn and meeting her boring parents every Sunday. He gave her the romance to get the sex, and she gave him the sex to get the romance. He used her badly, and she willingly became his whore, and she fell in love and left her H, and my H dumped her and would not leave me. It is too sordid for words, and I have long since stopped wanting to do anything that they did, or seeing his doing those things for me as JC.
Why on earth would I compare myself and my marriage to her and their affair, and why, if I did that, would I see myself as second best? Excuse me - that is unthinkable! I am incomparable to all that! I only want what I can build with my H from now on, and I do not waste my time wishing I had what she'd had. She has ruined her marriage and trashed her reputation, and I don't see how she can look at herself today and feel self-respect, and I feel nothing but pity for her.
My self respect is not in question. I haven't done anything within my marriage to feel ashamed of, and much, as a wife and mother, to feel proud of.
I'm not sure that telling you my strategy will help you or Gamma, but as I said, I'm not sure what will. I can only reiterate my experience that for me, progress along the path of recovery made the specifics of what they did recede further and further away.
Finally, my views of Gamma's strategy would be different if we were talking about an affair during the marriage that he was being denied details about. This is an infidelity from before they were married, which he was aware of and wiped the debt away by marrying his wife. This central concern of this whole thread is incomprehensible to me. What a waste of time and a life.
I do not know how competitive woman are in staking out their territory. On nature shows the male of the species is always in competition with other males. What you have done has worked for you.
Gamma's WW needs to tell him all. It may be more then he can handle. It may cause his marriage to fall apart. SHe needs to explain why she did the SF with the OM and why she will not do it for him. Once every thing is out in the open then they will be able to move forward. I guess Mrs G is happy to be in limbo. Happy enough to not risk being single again. The pay off of a better marriage after a final dday is not worth the risk to her.
A wife is not territory, she is a human being. Show her the best care, respect, and consideration she has ever gotten and you will have successfully beaten all the competition without treating her as a possession or as territory. Dr. Harley has often stated that one of the most amazing things about people is that they can make choices good for their life instead of being led around by destructive instincts.
xFWW(me)-48 Married-14 years D-Day~23-May-11 NC- 14-Apr-11 1 DS 15 Online course July '11 to July '12 17 sessions with S. Harley Feb '12 to Sep '12 Divorced Jan 21, 2013
A wife is not territory, she is a human being. Show her the best care, respect, and consideration she has ever gotten and you will have successfully beaten all the competition without treating her as a possession or as territory. Dr. Harley has often stated that one of the most amazing things about people is that they can make choices good for their life instead of being led around by destructive instincts.
Yet we do not want to share our wives.
Women are like light. Act like a wave. Act like a particle. They are not to be owned. Yet we won't share them.
A wife is not territory, she is a human being. Show her the best care, respect, and consideration she has ever gotten and you will have successfully beaten all the competition without treating her as a possession or as territory. Dr. Harley has often stated that one of the most amazing things about people is that they can make choices good for their life instead of being led around by destructive instincts.
Amen
This entire entitlement argument is completely irrelevant, because it is an obvious violation of POJA. Successful marriages require abiding by basic MB rules, POJA amongst the rest. If Gamma is unhappy about any aspect of SF, then they need to have a POJA discussion about it. That means they do nothing until a mutually enthusiastic agreement is reached. No SF at all until they enthusiastically agree on all aspects of SF. Does Gamma really think this is all that important? Because, if he does, then POJA is the way to go. Emotional blackmail over "second class" status has no place in a MB marriage.
me-65 wife-61 married for 40 years DS - 38, autistic, lives at home DD - 37, married and on her own DS - 32, still living with us