I have asked her to stop drinking and facebooking, she told me flat out no. I asked her to slow down on drinking and facebooking, she told me to stop being annoying and that I wasn't her dad. I am trying not to make any withdrawals from her love bank, trying to build it up so I put a smile on my face and got involved in facebook and I go to every party and act like I'm having a good time while she acts out.

She may be an alcoholic. Her mom is an alcoholic. At this point, she doesn't have a problem stopping. she only drinks on the weekends, but it and facebook are hurting her, so she should want to get away. She just doesn't see it that way.

carsandkidz, I would begin by stopping the enabling and starting complaining. Putting a smile on your face and acting like you enjoy being neglected gives her the wrong impression. She has no motivation to stop. I would let her know how unhappy you are and that if she doesn't stop, this will lead to divorce.

Unconditional love leads to neglect and abuse and that is what has happened here. A complaint is not a lovebuster, it is a notification that her behavior is making you unhappy.

I suspect she is an alcoholic and Plan A does not work with alcoholics. She is also an adulterer who has never recovered, which makes Plan A even more inappropriate.

Do you have AA meetings close by? Have you checked into this?

won't complaining push her out the door? She's already said she "feels lost, like she never had a chance to find herself" and she feels like I'm controlling her, which I would be if I refuse to give her money to buy what she wants since I'm the sole income in our household.

If she is an alcoholic, then I'm approaching this all wrong, I guess. I will have to research that. Thanks for your advice

How would she go "out the door" if she has no money? It is not "controlling" to ask your wife to stop her bad behavior.

Not complaining when she makes you unhappy is to enable her. Complaints are good for marriage because they are a sign there is a problem in the marriage. She can't fix the problem if you don't tell her. These problems should be confronted head on. It comes across as if you don't care very much when you are complacent.

If she is an alcoholic, which it sure sounds like it, the approach is to tell her to stop drinking and go to AA. And most certainly you should stop giving an alcoholic money.

What was your posting name when you posted here about her affair? Did you expose her affair? Did she cut off all contact with her OM?

In addition please read all the letters in this area.
Alcoholic Spouse #1

Also this one.
How the Co-dependency Movement Is Ruining Marriages

@melodylane- I didn't post here when she had the affair. I uncovered it on facebook and she first left home for the OM. After 3 days, she realized it was a mistake, security at home and kids and such. While she was gone, I used the same person I am using now to get her to talk, since she wouldn't talk to me in depth. She completely cut off contact with the OM, has never made contact with him again.

I've tried complaining about the behaviors that are troubling. That's what led to her being withdrawn. She thinks I am trying to control her actions because I raise concern about her actions around these people. I stopped complaining because she took the complaints as hurtful attacks instead of loving caution and I was making too many love bank withdrawals without enough time to deposit anything.

I guess I'm trying to plan A it right now, have been for the last two weeks and facebook is beating me or she's an alcoholic.

Unfortunately, "talking" will not resolve problems. Changing behaviors WILL. Your marriage never recovered from her affair and is headed right straight for affair #2.

Did you know the OM? Was he married?


Her continued thoughtless behavior is a huge lovebuster. You need to understand that asking your spouse to STOP doing things that are reckless and hurtful is not "controlling" behavior. So continue to complain until the bad behavior stops. That's ok if she is withdrawn at first. It is much preferable to her marriage wrecking behavior. Not complaining has led your marriage to this terrible place.


I would abandon Plan A since alcoholics use Plan A to use and take advantage of their spouses. It is impossible to fill the needs of an alcoholic so you are just spinning your wheels with Plan A.

Also since Facebook was an avenue that allowed her first affair Facebook should be an EP and shouldn't be allowed.

First priority is her drinking.

Does this ring true for you, carsandkidz?

here

Ok, did some research and I don't think my wife is an alcoholic yet. I believe right now she is abusing alcohol and that may lead to addiction but it's not there yet. I'm going to make some requests and complaints, should get her back in to conflict and will definitely set some boundaries in our lives that might be more workable than what's going on now. I'm definitely an enabler, and blame myself completely when it's really a two way street. thanks, will come back and update, probably have more questions.

Good man! If she is not an alcoholic then she should have no problem stopping drinking altogether. I would probably start with her going to bars and partying on the weekends. That is as destructive to your marriage as her facebook addiction.

I would focus on creating a great marriage with her to fill the vacuum in her life. She is filling her life with alcohol, partying and facebook right now.

Trying to figure out how to proceed with my wife, need some advice.

About two months ago, my wife decided she just wasn't happy. Immediately started to pull away from our marriage, fell into a deep depression, fueled her depression with alcohol filled weekends, started spending tons of time on facebook.

I did my investigation into what she was up to, and there is no other man but there are a lot of other people that are making it difficult to get her to focus on her family and our relationship, so much so that she has no interest in working on anything. At the same time, she stopped doing any house work(stay at home mom). started laying on the couch for all waking hours except to pick up kids from school, driving through fast food restaurants for all meals. I picked up the house work, trying to show care.

For the first two weeks, I didn't do much of anything but go with the flow. For the rest of the time I have worked solely on building up her love bank and avoiding the love busters but the opportunities are so scarce because we are never alone, facebook is always where her attention is. Two weeks ago, I probably messed up a plan B.

I had planned the plan b for monday, was going to leave, tell her I wanted it to work but the road she was taking us down wasn't going to work. The weekend prior, I had our kids with my mother so the wife and I could go and have a good time over the weekend. Sunday morning, my wife woke up and told me she was done. We have a mutual female friend that lives in our neighborhood that came over and I left, trying to forge forward with the plan b. A few hours into being gone, she said she wanted to talk, wanted me to come home. I told her that I wasn't coming home unless she was sure that she wanted me there with her. She said she did, so I went home.

This is where I screwed up- my wife is a better negotiator than I am. What I wanted is for her to stop drinking, give facebook a rest and read his needs, her needs and love busters. She wanted nothing to do with any of it but agreed to go to a counselor.

I took what I could get and accepted the counseling as progress.

She put off the counseling session for a week, went to her first session alone. At the same time, she has pulled farther away and is completely unwilling to change any of her behaviors or commit to our relationship, or the desire to have our marriage work. Still won't get off facebook, still wants to go out drinking and partying every weekend, still not doing any housework.

The good is, she seems to have stopped pulling any farther away and is talking to me a little bit every day.

She says her counselor said it is normal for a person raised the way she was to become introverted when dealing with things and believes in her selfish state that her happiness is most important and the kids and I should have no consideration in her decision making right now. She also truly believes there is nothing wrong with drinking every weekend, being flirtatious with other men, ignoring me at these functions and talking on facebook for many hours every day.

I'm trying to figure out what to do. I don't want to push her away, but I don't know if I can keep going the way we are going.

Anyone know how I can salvage what I'm doing and get her to move a little more in the right direction? Should I just keep trying to tow the line and wait?

This is good, cars. It sounds like you are making some love bank deposits. Can you take her out on a date? If you can get her to spend 20-30 hours a week with you having fun and talking, you can probably restore her love for you, which will likely end her depression.

cars, do you have the book Surviving an Affair? I would read that book and start putting it into practice ... then move on to putting the rest of the Marriage Builders materials into practice.

As your balance in her love bank rises, she will likely follow.

However, you will need to disrupt any opposite sex friendships she has in order for your deposits to be seriously effective.

I tried to take her to dinner last night, she spent 90% of our time together commenting on facebook. Her new interests trump all the things we used to do together, all new interests revolve around all the other people she is talking to, never just her and I.

I'm glad you see the good as I saw it. With my state of mind, it's hard to determine what is good and what is not.

I've suggested we take a short vacation, weekend getaway, offered to go to movies, casinos, etc. She is only interested in going out to dinner with groups of friends, going to sporting events with groups of friends, hanging out at neighbor's houses with groups.

To whom is she talking on Facebook? Women only?

cars,

Getting this better is going to be a long hard slog.

Click here and start listening to Dr. Harley's radio show: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4200_radio.html

The show is one hour each day and repeats every hour until the next day's show. So you can listen any time.

Listen daily until your marriage is recovered. Expect to be doing this for at least a year. Dr. Harley's advice and principles are indispensable if you want to recover your marriage.

How do I disrupt her same sex friendships? Her facebook friends are both men and women, all but one married. But there are 500 of them, probably 10 different guys that comment on her posts every day. She has a special FB page set up with 40 members(neighborhood people) that I am included in but the entire focus of the page is my wife. She, of course, enjoys being the center of attention on this page and the postings are split 50/50 between men and women talking to/about her. She is well aware that I'm not comfortable with her talking to guys, especially with the state of our marriage and she is unwilling to budge.

I don't have the book, will order it.

Tell their wives, your kids, your church, and her family.