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Originally Posted by Justthe3ofus
Dr. Harley told Eden:

"To continue living with your wife who is in love with another man, totally disregards your feelings by flaunting her affair under your nose, and is also physically violent toward you is asking for permanent injury or even death."


It is possible that the first part of what Dr. Harley mentioned has changed, and so if that is the case, Dr. Harley may have a different take.

That is certainly possible, but nothing Eden has written suggests that has happened.

Originally Posted by Justthe3ofus
Most affairs die within 2 years, and Eden's exposure and assertive legal actions may have hastened the death of the affair, which is the point of the whole exercise, right?

No; that wasn't the point and it wasn't an exercise. He got a restraining order against her because she assaulted him on more than one occasion and threatened him with a knife. The point of his "assertive legal actions" wasn't to end her affair; it was to protect Eden and his children from her violence.

Originally Posted by Justthe3ofus
As I stated in my earlier post, she still very well could be in the fog, and if she is, the affair could easily resume.
I don't understand why you are concerned about the affair "resuming." The affair hasn't even ended yet.

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Originally Posted by JessicaClaire
Originally Posted by Justthe3ofus
Dr. Harley told Eden:

"To continue living with your wife who is in love with another man, totally disregards your feelings by flaunting her affair under your nose, and is also physically violent toward you is asking for permanent injury or even death."


It is possible that the first part of what Dr. Harley mentioned has changed, and so if that is the case, Dr. Harley may have a different take.

That is certainly possible, but nothing Eden has written suggests that has happened.

Originally Posted by Justthe3ofus
Most affairs die within 2 years, and Eden's exposure and assertive legal actions may have hastened the death of the affair, which is the point of the whole exercise, right?

No; that wasn't the point and it wasn't an exercise. He got a restraining order against her because she assaulted him on more than one occasion and threatened him with a knife. The point of his "assertive legal actions" wasn't to end her affair; it was to protect Eden and his children from her violence.

Originally Posted by Justthe3ofus
As I stated in my earlier post, she still very well could be in the fog, and if she is, the affair could easily resume.
I don't understand why you are concerned about the affair "resuming." The affair hasn't even ended yet.

It is true that the point of the restraining order was for protection from domestic violence, though I do think I was using it as an opportunity for plan B (though I did not o an official plan B (no plan B letter, and I have been communicating with wife). My lawyer picked up on the fact that I was somewhat using the RO as �punishment� for the affair. The judge thought my request for very little parenting time for my wife was unreasonable. I don�t think I told my lawyer about the pizza incident, and the affair was not properly exposed at the last court date in front of the judge.

Also true is that WW has been contacting OM daily by phone, in addition to having taken my kids to his house twice last weekend. The RO was amended last Mon to restrict children contact with a paramour (including OM). I check my wife�s phone records daily, as account is in my name, but can only see outgoing calls, no incoming calls or texts. There were a couple calls to OM this week of about 30 min. duration. The rest were 1-3 min. She said that contact with him has been �sporadic� this week and just to say how are you doing, so she is not being fully honest. I wonder if I should straight out let her know that I know she has been calling him or if this would just make her hyper-vigilant. She did mention this morning that she at least told him not to call her and said she would not be contacting any more, and said she is willing to change her phone number.

What is the best way to introduce to her the extraordinary precautions (and other recovery criteria) and how, since I am not supposed to be talking to her?

I am still concerned about the potential for anger/violence toward me, and brought up to WW the possibility of treatment for anger/domestic violence. She said she would be willing. The question is how to enforce this without RO or civil restraint. With both of these options there is not possibility of living together. I am interested in hearing recommendations of child protective but the psych evaluations are not until Dec. 16 through Dec. 23.

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Sir drop the wife and protect your kids from her.
Tell your lawyer about the pizza incident.
I suspect there are other "incidents" and you are protecting her through your trickle truth exposure of her abuse

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Just wanted to point out that Dr Harley recommended divorce in this case and that is what I would help this poster focus on. There are many, many more issues here than just an affair.

Dr Harley: "In your case, I�d consider a divorce to be almost the only reasonable end to your relationship. To continue living with your wife who is in love with another man, totally disregards your feelings by flaunting her affair under your nose, and is also physically violent toward you is asking for permanent injury or even death."


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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Eden,

In my case Harley recommended a similar outcome.
He places safety (especially childrens safety) highly.
I also wanted to say my marriage but since I have been divorced and away from her, I can now see how divorce actually benefited my kids.

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I realize now that the best thing for me is not to live with my wife for the time being. Pretty much everyone that I talk to, with the exception of WW, thinks this is the best route, to maintain the RO. I just had a long talk with my sister in law (my brother's wife) who has experienced my wife's controlling nature over the years and has also been through a divorce herself (my brother is her second husband). She is a strong woman and she has also witnessed over the years my lack of boundaries and indecisiveness, with my wife as well as my family and my students when I was a teacher.

I really do feel that my communicating with my wife this past week has not been good for my psyche. I have been treating my wife as my higher power since I met her. It is going to take more time away from her to break out of that and become my own man.

It is interesting that a big issue my wife has had with me over the years is my indecisiveness and my inability to take action and tell her how things are going to be. Even though she is saying she wants to get back together right away I feel I need time to continue developing my self confidence and boundaries on my own. Interestingly, WW has said that one major thing she found attractive in the OM was his ability to be decisive and take action and set boundaries with my wife. However much she thinks she wants to get back together with me I think she still wants me to make my own decisions. My flip flopping and talking with her this last week has kid of undermined that. I need to show her that I am serious and that what I am doing is in the best interest of the children. I am sensing that without following through on the RO and standing up for myself and my kids that there will never be a chance of us reconciling at any point in the future. I am finally starting to come to terms that there may not be a chance of reconciliation, but I know there will not be if I do not follow through and stand up for myself now, which I cannot do with her in my head.

Thank you all for sharing your wisdom and experience, and for your seeming patience through this learning process for me.

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Originally Posted by eden13
I need to show her that I am serious and that what I am doing is in the best interest of the children. I am sensing that without following through on the RO and standing up for myself and my kids that there will never be a chance of us reconciling at any point in the future.

No, you do not "need to show her that you are serious and what you are doing is in the best interest of the children." You should act in your kids' best interest because you love them, not because you are trying to show her a new and improved version of yourself. Your wife's view of you should not be what motivates you to protect your kids; your love for your kids should be what motivates you to protect them. You should be motivated to protect them regardless of whether it would improve your chances of recovering your marriage. How it could affect the odds of reconciliation should never even cross your mind. THEY ARE YOUR CHILDREN.

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Originally Posted by JessicaClaire
Originally Posted by eden13
I need to show her that I am serious and that what I am doing is in the best interest of the children. I am sensing that without following through on the RO and standing up for myself and my kids that there will never be a chance of us reconciling at any point in the future.

No, you do not "need to show her that you are serious and what you are doing is in the best interest of the children." You should act in your kids' best interest because you love them, not because you are trying to show her a new and improved version of yourself. Your wife's view of you should not be what motivates you to protect your kids; your love for your kids should be what motivates you to protect them. You should be motivated to protect your kids from her abuse regardless of whether it would improve your chances of recovering your marriage. Whether it will improve the odds of reconciliation should never even cross your mind. THEY ARE YOUR CHILDREN.

I understand. It is the love for my kids that is motivating me. I feel good about showing them that I am strong enough to stand up for what is in their best interest.

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**edit**

Last edited by MBsurvivor; 12/08/13 11:57 AM. Reason: TOS disrespectful
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A warning to posters to keep posts respectful and helpful!


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Good job Eden.

Stay firm here.

She wants to come back because things are getting terribly uncomfortable for her and rightly so. Continue being tough and protecting yourself and the kids. Get a divorce.

This lady needs to be on her own to figure out her own problems and take responsibility for them. Let her scramble to find housing, funding, etc.

You're coming out of your own fog. A fog in which she had you cowed and cowering. Keep going with the separation/divorce plan. If she really wants to reconcile and heal the family, she'll spend the next few years working on her anger issues and proving her worth to you. If not, you are far better off without her.

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eden13 Offline OP
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Shoul i really file for divorce right now or wait until RO is finalized? Does it make a difference who files for divorce first?

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In your case, I would file for divorce while you have an advantage. Dr Harley advised you to get divorced and the timing is advantageous.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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The person who files controls the timetable so you must be the one to file if you want this (you do)


3 adult children
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I encourage you to file immediately

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Originally Posted by eden13
I don’t think I told my lawyer about the pizza incident, ...
Also true is that WW has been contacting OM daily by phone, in addition to having taken my kids to his house twice last weekend.


Eden the fact you didn't consider the pizza incident important enough to mention to the person fighting for you legally is pretty telling. Most people would consider that horrific and would kick their spouse out of the house to protect their kids after an incident like that. However I am sure she had made such violent behaviour seem normal and had gaslighted you into acceptance for a long time before she even tried something that extreme.

That's why it seems so normal that you didn't even mention it. When you have had some time away from her you will see much more clearly all your family has gone through.

She's still in constant contact with OM. All her tears are for herself and she is trouble from top to bottom. Stay with Dr Harley's advice, he can see this is more than just an average A. Marital recovery isn't for everyone and I can personally vouch for it when I say that isn't a bad thing at all.



What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

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I was about to write that she had not been calling out to OM for 48 hours but then I checked phone records and saw a one minute call to his number late last night. Oh well. The last two days she has been calling out to her al-anon support group though. Regarding the violence with the children (pizza, etc.) I think that she realizes it has been a problem but is not successfully working toward a solution. I really am not excusing that behavior, but he did always do more reading up on parenting and conflict resolution with the kids than I did. I still have a lot of learning to do in that area. It just seems that her skills are not that well developed, especially when it comes to me. Of course, I had been allowing that to continue to happen.

The more I have been reading SAA the more I am eager to try and work on Dr. Harley's methods. I just wish I was at that point where it could happen. I guess that it won't happen in the case of divorce, unless it is with someone new. Am I correct?

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Safety is paramount. It is a saying we use every time us military folks train. Its useful in every area of our lives too. On the divorce thing, it's very common for people to get divorce and later remarry so improve yourself and focus on your children's safety.
Should make alist of where you need improvement in accordance with Dr. Harley's emotional needs and include a plan of how you going to better yourself.

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Originally Posted by TranquilDark
Should make alist of where you need improvement in accordance with Dr. Harley's emotional needs and include a plan of how you going to better yourself.

Dr. Harley doesn't recommend trying to meet all the emotional needs in a general sense which could be applied to anyone in a future relationship; he recommends identifying and learning how to best meet the particular emotional needs which are most important to the spouse. Your comments suggest you are encouraging Eden to try to meet his wife's emotional needs, despite the fact that it is inconsistent with Dr. Harley's advice to Eden. Because Eden's wife has been so physically and emotionally abusive, Dr. Harley did not recommend that he learn how to best meet her emotional needs; Dr. Harley told Eden to protect himself and his children from her, and suggested that permanent separation and divorce may the only reasonable course of action. It seems like Eden wants to apply SAA recommendations despite the fact that Dr. Harley already told him that those recommendations should not be applied to his situation.

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Eden,

I really applaud the progress you have been making and would like to acknowledge that you have gained some much needed strength since your initial posts on here.

I would like for you to get a prospective regarding the advice you have been given so far.

This forum is called marriage builders, Dr Harley has an outstanding record and experience at saving marriages, no one here takes divorce lightly and in my 5 years of reading daily on this forum I haven't come accross many cases where divorce is adviced. Yet your situation is so dangerous and your kids wellbeing is at such a risk that you have been adviced to unequivocally separate from your WW right now and file for divorce, there is no way round it and there is no magic pill to make this better. You need to prioritise your kids and your safety.

I am 100% certain that there are many other incidents like the pizza incident that you have not disclosed either because you don't want to or because you don't realise the significance of such behaviour but either way there is zero excuse or tolerance for such conduct. If this woman wasn't your wife and you saw this behaviour would you make excuses like you are now??? A murderer can't redeem himself because he was reading books on how to manage his killing urges yet he still went ahead and murdered someone.


Forget about the emotional needs, forget about the contact your WW is having with the OM. Your focus right now is to secure the wellbeing of your kids and inform the right people of the things that have happened and are happening in order to secure full custody and safety of your kids. That's it, that's all you should focus on right now.

You can't meet your WW emotional needs because she is in an affair and even after the Affair ends you will not be able to meet her needs as she will need to follow steps in order to manage her anger and her behaviour. The more you dwell on this the less your focusing where you should right now.

My opinion is that your WW has no intention to reconcile but she is telling you what you want to hear in order for you to drop the RO. Be smart about this don't take the bate and eliminate all the unnecessary contact that geprodises your chances of getting the RO. Keep it simple, keep to the rules of the RO and focus on the kids who are in much need of stability right now. You can't be a husband right now but you are a father and you are risking loosing that by not being more proactive in protecting the kids.




BW 36(Me)
WS 38
Married: 2000
DD1November 22 2008 - DD2 October 2014
PA Duration September 08 - November 08
Second discovery- 6 online affairs 4 sexual one emotional. October 2014.kids: DS 17, DS 14, DS 12, DS 10 . Baby after divorce DS 18months

Divorced

Was misled into thinking we were in recovery for 6 years.

If you were shocked reading any of this, that this is the consequence of not following MB to the LETTER.

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