Yes. However we do not live in the same town where the A took place. It was 70 miles away.

Time to time I drive near the city in which this occurred and it makes me sick to my stomach. My IL's live there. We do not go to their home as this is a huge trigger for me.
Over time, this may change. But not now.

I cannot fathom living in the same town. I guess you and your W have to determine what you want.

I was working with a couple through my church MB ministry for whom triggers were everywhere. The A was with the BWs best friend, and all relationships and family events were entangled with hurt.

In truth they are now almost unaffected by triggers, and I must say this is because of the awesome and serious efforts made by the FWH to:
a) Apologize until the BW get ssick of hearing it
b) Making sure she knows she is loved in ways up to, above and beyond meeting ENs
c) making sure she knows how grateful he is for her grace, and to still have her in his life.

Clearly this is not THAT sustainable, because even those positive contributions still have the effect of keeping the memory of the affair alive, but I see that just a CULTURE of love and gratitude is building there which is transcending words and actions.

This humbles me, and makes me very jealous: I'd ADORE that response from my own wife, but in dozens of couples coached I have never seen such a truly repentant and loving FWS before.

I would offer that the secret to forgetting the past is for the FWS and BS to both walk in grace, humility and love. It is a beautiful thing to see.

Dr. Harley would disagree with you.

This is not MB philosophy. This is very dangerous advice. This is NOT the path to recovery.

***EDIT***

MB is a program outlined by specific steps and processes. If left up to 'good will' without the mechanics of the program it will never work. As you well know.

My wife and I are in love with each other. We respect each other. We are happy.

This didn't happen by chance. It happened because we follow the specific processes outlined by Dr. Harley. Without it, we would be divorced.

After her A I thought it would never be possible. The mechanics of the program develop the attributes you list.

Good will and intentions with reassurance alone will not recover a M after an A.

Feelings follow actions.

I would suggest that what Dr. Harley says is the secret to forgetting the past (which is actually not possible. The best you can do is for resentment to fade) is to be in-love, to have an integrated lifestyle, to take your spouses feelings into consideration with every decision, to make all your decisions where they are mutually beneficial and agreeable, to have radical honesty, to meet each other's EN's.

What really sold me on the program were these things. No other program that I looked at offered anything close to this.

Well, Bob didn't say not to follow the MB recovery plan.
To walk in love, grace and humility are virtues that Christ taught.

***EDIT*** I understand the importance of following the program but I also do not see the "danger" in turning to one's faith in such a time either. Everything is not an exactly "one size fits all" when dealing with the horrors of infidelity. It is not always black and white in every circumstance, there are gray areas. While the MB ideas have helped me tremendously, prayer has given me more comfort than anything else during my time of recovering from my WW's A.

I don't think Dr. Harley suggests there is a danger in turning to one's faith - but there is a danger in turning to certain mistaken faith ideas. As a great example, a lot of people believe that the Bible teaches that Christians ought to choose to be happy in marriage whether their spouse meets their needs or not. This is really something akin to Buddhism, not Christianity, i.e., achieve fulfillment and enlightenment through the annihilation of desire. But for a lot of people, this is what they believe their faith teaches - and there is surely a danger to recovery in following this idea.

I believe the danger 20year is highlighting here is a very common scenario: a betrayed husband expects gracious and loving behavior and remorse from his wife even when she is not in love with him. This has caused many betrayed husbands to give up on recovery. But the fact is it's not very realistic - it is not the norm. The normal situation involves a husband working hard to fill his wife's love bank and remorse and such things only appearing when she has been in love with her husband for awhile. And for some of us there are a lot of nasty, non-gracious, disrespectful darts hurled at us during that time.

Marriage Builders explains that recovery is still possible even if the wife has not learned to be gracious and remorseful, yet. And it's important that this fact not be obscured, or a lot of betrayed husbands will give up on recovery.

Please advise this poster using Marriage Builders concepts. If you wish to debate a concept, please take it to your own thread. Thank you.

THG, there are three intra-related things you have mentioned in the past couple pages, and it raises a question

1) You are attempting to quit tobacco (Bravo! Something I have to do myself!).

2) You are on an antidepressant.

3) You suggest that the antidepressant you are on is causing you to enjoy SF less.


My question; what AD are you on? Did you/have you discussed other medications, or tried other medications?


The reason I ask; Dr. Harley speaks up a lot for Buproprion aka Welbutrin.

Reason being it is an atypical antidepressant (it is a dopamine/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor vs a SSRI or tricylic) - as such, it does not typically carry the same side effects as other classes of antidepressants; weight gain, loss of sex drive. In fact, it often increases sex drive, and promotes weight loss. Additionally, clinical studies have found that some men also experience an increase in their serum testosterone levels while on the medication.

In addition to all of that, it is a fantastic aid for tobacco cessation.

Just a thought.

(PS - I haven't taken it myself, but that's because I need to get off my butt and go see my doc.... nurses are notoriously terrible at self-care).

A bit of a misunderstanding. I quit smoking 25 years ago when my son was born. I was prescribed an AD by my physician, but never filled the Rx.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I appreciate it.

[quote=markos] That is the whole point of respect. You don't tell your spouse how wrong they are to treat you the way you do, or how badly they are treating you. You simply communicate to them your feelings: "It's hurtful when you do this." "I can't be happy living like this," etc.

The point is not to educate your spouse about how thoughtless they are being. You cannot educate your spouse. It's a love buster and she will tune it out. What you CAN do is inform her about the effect her actions have on your feelings. So you don't brand it "wrong" and you don't say "I need to be treated better," you communicate specifically about what more you need without a value judgment, and you let her know what specific things she does that hurt you.

If you hold onto a need to tell her how wrong she is and she ought to be doing more for you because she has hurt you, you are not going to make it. That will not be enough to motivate her to recover your marriage. It's already been demonstrated that she will not be motivated that way.[quote]

I must have been sleeping during one of the 6:00 AM calls with SH because I missed this approach. Thank you for the insight. I have watched the MB homepage videos which really do a nice job describing selfish demands and disrespectful judgments. My mistake has been that I am a problem solver, so I would retreat into my head, solve the problem and then when I would explain why we had to do certain things I would revert back to telling the A story. Double whammy - talking about the past and disrespectful judgment.

Good stuff.

I think wrong poster, THG.

D'oh!