Yes, it is. Schedule that time for once a week, and don't discuss the issues outside of that time. Keep the rest of your conversations light and enjoyable.

Intimate Conversation is essential for your wife to fall back in love with you, so the answer is not to do less talking. Instead, investigate her. Find out what she enjoys talking about, and spend your time discussing those things.

MMM, the first and most important thing to do is for her to cut off ALL CONTACT for life with this dirtbag. None of this will have any effect until that happens. She should have no contact of any type with him. And I would snoop on her to make sure contact has ended.

For example, you might want to put spyware on her cell phone to make sure there is no contact. A good spyware program is eblaster or flexispy. This will help you trust her faster when you can see that she is being faithful.

Great Link, Thanks.

I've read so much since D-day, and had so many uncontrolled emotions, that some of the good ideas got squeezed out by anger and confusion.

So I'll focus my UA on all the intimate EAs. Makes sense, since my wife tells me I cover all the other one's in glorious fashion. She also says I'm naturally an ace at SF. That was one of the reasons I was so blindsided by the affair in the first place. With me covering 7 of 10 so well, I had a hard time believing she would have an affair with a man who was only able to cover 2. But with me separated due to employment, she was able to soak up all the conversation and affection from the OM, his love bank skyrocketed and mine went belly-up. It's really just a math game.

Another point to consider. She has expressed concern that with all the UA we are giving each other (close to 25 hours a week), the kids are getting the short end. I believe the kids are pretty sturdy and the attention we cannot give them now will be repaid in spades when they can bring THEIR children to our fiftieth. Am I right on this? Or, is there any guidance on MB for maintaining a baseline level of family time.

Yes! The baseline level of family time is 15 hours per week. This is how Dr. Harley recommends a husband meet a wife's emotional need for family commitment. Spend the time together as a family, in a way that both you and she are enthusiastic about.

If she's talking about it, you can bet FC is an important emotional need for her.

The Love Bank is a very logical concept, isn't it? Dr. Harley's approach to falling in love makes perfect sense when described this way.

Marriages have two parts: Meeting needs and creating a romantic passionate marriage AND creating a barrier around our love banks so no one else can deposit love units.

In your absences, you were unable to meet most of her intimate emotional needs. That's why separations are so bad for marriage.

But it also takes Extraordinary Precautions to prevent an affair from happening. The Harleys have always had EPs and neither of them of has ever had an affair. We would all have affairs under the right conditions, but EPs make an affair virtually impossible.

Even when a marriage is great, a person can have an affair just by having ONE need met, while the spouse meets all the other needs.


Your children NEED for your marriage to survive, so your UA needs to be first and foremost. If there's time remaining, set that aside for Family Commitment time. These two priorities need to take precedence over any personal time for yourselves.

Have you exposed your wife's affair to your children? If not, you should do so, so they understand the tension in the home.

MMM, in recovery from an affair, you need to put all your focus on ending her affair, exposing it and affair proofing your marriage. THEN, all of your focus can go to creating a romantic marriage. I am concerned that you aren't responding to my posts outlining these steps. If you don't take these steps, you will be facing another affair. Your wife had an affair because your marriage was not affair proofed. Even if you eliminate every lovebuster and meet her needs PERFECTLY, she will have another affair if these steps are not followed.

Check out this article: here

I pretty much skipped over plan A and went straight to B (not knowing what they were) and would have sent her away with the worst possible memory of me, which is pretty much the OPPOSITE of plan B. I went upstairs to leave her with herself and checked on the kids. They were huddled in my son's bunk bed crying. You have to realize that in 15 years, I have NEVER done that. That was the kind of house I grew up in, but not my kids. I'm still embarrassed.

It actually bothered me at first that my daughter, who is 14, offered me no compassion for the obvious grief I was in. Writing this now I realize how unreasonable it would have been for her to offer me compassion...after the abuse I handed her mother. Both my wife and I have talked to her since, with no luck. She is avoiding even thinking about it...maybe that's just the teenager in her. I feel like she could be my greatest ally in keeping my WS honest. My wife really wants our daughter to respect her, and if my daughter was emotionally able to tell her mother that she is disappointed in her, there is no way she would consider the OM again. Anyway, I screwed that up big time.

It's unfortunate that I came to MB so late, as may commonly be the case. So, exposure was a complete bust but I think I'm grasping the rest.

Incidentally, when I told my WS to get the H*ll out of my house (I know, completely wrong), she called the OM twice that night and made plans to fly out to HI to be with him. She immediately reconsidered and sent a NC letter to him, via email. Not a MB endorsed NC letter, I had no input into it. She just sent him an email saying "nevermind" and "I've decided to put my family first" and "do not attempt to contact me, I won't return communication". I would have preferred some other things said, but it was done already. In a way this haphazard NC letter has contributed to the slow and painful death of the affair.

Are you monitoring her, MMM, to insure that there is no contact whatsoever? Even googling his name is contact, btw. Or looking him up on Facebook. Are you watching her activity?

Has she gotten rid of all letters, mementos, and pictures?

It is very common for wives and children to blame a husband for a wife's affair, at least for awhile.

As a teenager, I advise you to let her make up her own mind. By the time you succeed in getting your wife to fall in love with you again, you will probably have provided so much care for your wife that your daughter will be friendly toward you again.

I hear you Melody,

It does feel like I'm skipping over the some of the first steps.

As I posted earlier, I royally screwed up the exposure and NC letter. I came to MB late and don't know if I can go back to fix that stuff. It feels late and will take a huge withdrawal from the Love Bank.

For Example, I wanted to expose the OM to his employer. He is the head of anesthesiology at a major hospital. He's listed on the Hospital website as a "leader", yet he started an EA (later PA) with a junior subordinate, who was married with a family. From my perspective in the military, I guy in this position had better be exposed, that's completely unacceptable behavior. Well my WS basically said if I did that, we were over. In hindsight, that was probably wrong to fold under those demands. And I really didn't fully understand the MB concept regarding exposing the OM to his employer and potential for him to do this to another nurse in the future. It seemed like I should only do that if the WS refused to leave the job. She has left the job. We live 4000 miles away now, so I think I'm done there. It just torques me that she made such a fit about not exposing him and I caved.

I'll respond to affair proofing. I will talk to her tonight about her next job. She is actually job hunting now and I will insist that she eliminates possibilities which put her in a risky atmosphere, we both know what that means for her. I have to consider electronic tracking for communications. Like I said, we live 4000 miles away from ground zero, and that louse doesn't care enough about her to come visit. And, the entire EA was online; it only turned physical on the night of her going away party where the good doctor was buying her and her girlfriends drinks (he was the only guy around a handful of nurses at a strip club). He of course, being the good guy that he was, was not drinking so that he could get her safely home. Turns out, it was his home, not mine...the rest is history.

Monitoring the electronic communications is scary hard right now. I've got three computers, several tablets, and everyone has smartphones. They all have different apps which I don't know how to track. Heck, the first evidence of a relationship with him was her messaging him in the game "Words with Friends" on her phone. I saw it by accident months ago and she shrugged it off as he's just a friend. I told her I didn't like it and she stopped playing with him. Of course I had no idea at the time they had already slept together.

My point is, I check cell/text records, I have her email go straight to my phone, I have all her passwords, but she duped me again. And, I consider myself a smart guy. The first affair, she was a noob, The evidence was sitting there in her "deleted items" folder on MySpace (five years ago, I know). This time, she was so devious I missed everything. I mean really� messaging on "words with friends". I'm working this, but you have to appreciate my frustration.

I will say that I believe her when she says she hasn't contacted him since D-day. I spend quite a bit of time snooping to convince myself of that.

And I immediately regret considering allowing her to contact him. You and the fine folks at MB have fixed me. I will tell her tonight that I changed my mind. I hope I'm alive tomorrow.

MMM, I want to echo this and emphasize it for you. You and your wife need to make your marriage safe from future affairs. Do you have the book Surviving an Affair? This is your CRUCIAL guide. Don't skip it. Dr. Harley explains that you and your wife need to take Extraordinary Precautions to make an affair impossible.

Let me give you an equation we pass around here:

Unmet emotional needs + NO Extraordinary Precautions = AFFAIR
Unmet emotional needs + Extraordinary Precautions = NO affair
Met emotional needs + NO Extraordinary Precautions = AFFAIR
Met emotional needs + Extraordinary Precautions = NO affair

If extraordinary precautions are not established, all of your work to rebuild a romantic relationship will be for naught.

Get rid of the smart phones. She cannot be trusted with one.

One of her EPs needs to be "no more opposite sex friendships."

Do ya'll have Facebook?

She was a very capable liar (only with regard to the affair), she did not keep anything. Heck, she was always asking things like flight reservations, and stuff we ordered from Amazon. I would tell her, check your email. She was so nuts about deleting evidence of the affair, she deleted EVERYTHING!

She did keep a necklace he gave her. When she first moved to Virginia, I asked about it. She said her friend Debbie gave it to her. It was a relatively simple piece, so I believed it. During the trickle truth, she told me it was actually from him. She said she threw it away but I would have rather her have given it to me to pawn. I would have sent the cash to him in the NC letter. Worst part is, she wore that necklace everywhere, right out in front for the world to see for a month. I'm still running across very special photos of her and me together, her brandishing that stupid necklace.

And don�t get me started on Facebook, she defriended him but she's got friends that have pictures of them together (as friends of course, and in group shots). If she wants to see them together, she can go to a number of places. I don�t think she is, but she could. Should I ask those individuals to remove the photos?

She has agreed to that. The only opposite sex friends are family friends AND we only see/communicate with them as a couple or on a same gender basis.

I hate facebook. We have it. MySpace was the vessel for EA #1, Facebook for #2. FB rules need to be part of the EMs as well. What are some thoughts? No account, Joint account, tracking software, can I get parental controls over her account?

Get the special photos photoshopped and toss any others.

Defriending him is not enough, neither is having friends remove photos. Facebook needs to be shut down and blocked.

No account, and no online games. We have already seen affairs here on this site from couples that had joint facebook accounts. Avenues of possible contact need to be blocked.

Thats perfectly fine. You can go ahead and send the letter. I would approach her on this tonight and tell her you need her to agree to NEVER EVER have any contact with him again and insist on the letter.


This is where I would start. SEnd an exposure letter to his employer outlining the affair. I would suggest you contact his wife earlier in the day and tell her all about the affair. Offer to give her the evidence you have, via email, etc, and most importantly, give her your wife's cell phone # so she can call her.

The only reason your wife didn't want you to expose is so she can continue her affair. Keeping it secret for them harms you all and you don't want to do that.

And DO NOT forewarn your wife of your exposure.



Perfect. She should not take any job unless you are genuinely, sincerely enthusiastic about it. That EXCLUDES any capitulation. Capitulation is a disaster for marriages and you cannot do that!


These are all holes that need to be closed. Obviously, she shuoldn't have a smartphone anymore and she certainly should not be playing WWF or be a part of any social networking. It would be a good idea to completely delete facebook and install a keylogger on your computer.


When was her last contact? FRom reading your post above it sounded like you were condoning continued contact.

MMM, I would pick up the phone this afternoon and call his wife and inform her of the affair. That way you can tell your wife about it tonight or tomorrow and that she can never contact that scumbag again.

You can send a formal letter to his employer tomorrow. Just check out my exposure thread for letter templates and best practices.

Additionally, that would be a good time to tell your kids and your close family and friends about the affair. How old are your kids?

fyi, exposure will have an amazing effect on her attitude about the affair. Today it is a beautiful, pretty fantasy with her loverboy. When you expose it, she will begin to see it for what it is through the eyes of objective observers. They will all be looking at her affair as about as "pretty" as 2 pigs going at it. When your kids ask her about her affair and she gets a call from this man's wife, it will be a huge wake up call to your wife.

See, keeping it a secret for her is to ENABLE the affair because affairs thrive on secrecy. All the fantasy evaporates when they are exposed to the light of day.

It is very much like bringing a crowd of people into the crack house to watch the crackheads get high. It is no fun to make a fool of yourself when people are watching you with disgust on their face!