You need to read the book, Surviving an Affair, which can be downloaded on Kindle for PC's here

Get the book Surviving an Affair. You need it - badly. It describes the entire recovery process.

I doubt you have read as much as you think you have, but you are describing a good approach - read everything you can get your hands on, because often there is useful material even if it doesn't seem applicable.

But don't just read - follow Dr. Harley's usual recommendations for your situation. You have to DO, not just READ. And I promise you the people on this forum are instructing you to do just what Dr. Harley would advise - we as a forum culture don't tolerate it when someone posts their own personal opinions and contradicts the advice we have heard Dr. Harley give thousands of times on his radio show and in his books. And neglecting that advice is likely to lead to the ruin of your marriage.

As somebody said above, stop posting psychobabble, and DO something!

If someone posts something on your thread that is a contradiction to Dr Harley's advice, you should click on "notify" and alert the moderators so they can remove the post and perhaps ban the poster. Like Markos said, this forum is to help you with Dr Harley's advice, not personal opinions.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying . Right now she isn�t in the state of withdrawal. She is in the state of an affair/fantasy. Waywards rewrite history, lie to themselves to justify their behavior, want separation so they can chase what makes them feel good (the addiction), they do whatever they have to to maintain their fix. You are fighting against that not her withdrawal right now.

If you are going to save this you need to bust up the fantasy.

FYI: I posted to this forum for almost 10 years doing what you have done so far, reading the website and getting forum advice.

Nothing changed in my M until my W and I purchased the books last year and hired Joyce and Dr Harley�s daughter Jennifer to guide us through the MB concepts.

Get the books today!

Here's what Dr. Harley's book actually says about this:


Yes, kill the affair first! By all means keep trying to be the best husband you can be during that time, meeting emotional needs and NOT arguing with her. We talk here about using a "carrot" and "stick" approach:

"Carrot": Don't argue with her, don't be demanding, disrespectful, or angry, keep inviting her to spend time with you, and try to meet her emotional needs as much as she will let you - present yourself as the most attractive option.
"Stick": complete exposure of the affair, allow her to face the consequences of the affair (damaged relationships with children and others, consequences at work, etc.)

So why don't you write the good Doctor himself?

I think I will do so, but because I need some kind of action for NOW, do you think it better to discuss that with my wife, perhaps get her to write too? Or specifically NOT discuss with her. My gut says: discuss with her.

Edit: I mean, discuss writing/calling the show, and perhaps asking if she might want to do the same.

There's nothing to discuss with your WW until she ends her affair.

Do you have SAA yet?

Have you read the basic concepts and starting actually DOING IT? Remember, if your wife truly is in withdrawl from you, most likely you were NOT meeting her needs all these years, despite thinking you were.

You were probably doing "all these things" that you thought made you a perfect husband, but unfortunately you didn't do the things that SHE would want a husband to do, and she lost her love for you.

So, blah blah blah about the affair being an actual one or a fantasy of having one. Whatever. Stop thinking and talking about that. You exposed, done. START MEETING HER NEEDS AND FILLING HER LOVE BANK. Just fill, fill, fill. Then she will come out of withdrawl and start FIGHTING with you. That's GOOD! She is engaging! Keep filling her love bank, and eventually she will be able to fall back in love with you.

I'd concentrate on the basic concepts and filling your wife's love bank first. I'd also make it SUPER HARD for her to spend any time with OM or contact him. Can you get her to agree to spend the nights at your house, ONLY, while you work on this?

lonely4years, since her lovebank is CLOSED to Venturi due to her AFFAIR, how do you suggest he fill her lovebank? And how will she come out of withdrawal as long as her needs are being filled by another man?

Sorry but this is exactly the WRONG thing to say to a poster like Venturi.

We have seen this type of BS before and if you give them a reason to think they can solve marital issues by sweeping the affair under the rug, they will RUN with it.

As it stands, his wife has spent the night at OM's house (more proof than most BS's have) and Venturi is still in denial that this is a PA or that killing the affair is the first step.

Yes, he should be in Plan A so that when his WW comes out of the fog, she will know that he is willing to meet her EN's but there is NO filling her LB$ while she is still in her affair. That is a common misunderstanding of Plan A.

STOP trying to talk to your fogged out WW about her affair and about fixing the M! All that does is give her a chance to gaslight and distract you = the opposite of what you need.

I have just skimmed over your entire thread in one sitting and it's obvious that you have a problem with wanting to focus on other issues than the affair.

You need to stop arguing and start listening before it's too late.

Plan A: Expose the affair and express a sincere willingness to resolve marital conflicts.

In Dr. Harley's 40 years of experience working with marriages and specializing in infidelity, he has found that one of the quickest ways to end an affair is to expose it. As he states in SAA, "reality has a way of bursting the bubble of illusion, and an affair is one of the biggest illusions that anyone can experience in life. It's based almost entirely on emotions with almost no logic to support it."

Just stick to the plan laid out clearly by Marriage Builders. It's very clear-cut and so helpful when our emotions and instincts, as the betrayed spouse, are overriding logic.

You will not be able make love bank deposits while she is still in the fog and in withdrawal from you, but you can continue to tell her that you are willing to work on the marriage. You can eliminate all anger and disrespect.

What you are not taking into consideration is that many of us have posted and been reading on these forums for YEARS. We see the same things over and over and over again.

For example, "want time apart" is code for "want privacy to pursue my affair". Not only does Dr Harley say that this is the case but we see this all the time on the forums.

Your problem is that you are trying to reason with your WW and listening to her fogbabble.

She knows that she can gaslight & distract you -- and that is a big problem here.

When my sister's H was in his affair, he knew that he could gaslight her (my sister) and he knew that he wouldn't be able to gaslight me. He desperately tried to keep her away from me -- even telling her that he had had an affair with me in the past. Thankfully, I got my sister on the forums, and MelodyLane almost singlehandedly helped her kill the affair. My sister's H defogged and they are now recovered.

Of course your WW is going to try to make it seem like exposure HURT your M. Did you read the exposure thread? This is covered! Again, ALL waywards say this. It is gaslighting 101!

Your WW is not on your team right now. She is on team affair. You are really going to have to stop trying to reason with a crackhead while you are pulling the pipe from her mouth and start listening to us - we have seen this scenario hundreds of times before.

I really hope you wake up!

Yes and it's quite obvious that you are ignoring the parts that are applicable to affairs.

In your first post, you discussed your W's childhood, feelings, depression, her refusal to fill out the EN's...

and only devoted about two sentences out of 10+ paragraphs to the fact that you found her messages to a man to come pick her up and do things to her.

Seriously? We see a lot of denial on these forums but this is a pretty extreme case....

**edit**

That's okay, l4y - it's sometimes hard to get all of the details straight as the threads get long.

The important thing here is that he needs to not sweep the affair under the rug. Recovery from an affair involves making the right changes to DEAL WITH THE AFFAIR. He needs to not delude himself into thinking that he just needed to be a better husband. (In fact in one of these posts, I see that she agreed that he was a perfect husband.)

If you look at his last couple of posts, his WW is pissed off at his exposure (common) and has distracted him from thinking the affair is a problem.

His 2nd to last post said that we are pushing the wrong agenda on him and this is a withdrawn/conflict situation and not an affair problem.

It's OK -- it's just those of us who have been here for years can see posters who have a huge issue with denial (he knew from first post there was an issue with an OM but only devoted about two sentences to it) and are VERY HIGH risk for being gaslit and distracted.

A request to posters to please familiarize yourself with Marriage Builders concepts before posting to posters in need, especially those in a state of crisis. Thank you!