Tell her that you found a plan that if you both follow will help you have the romantic marriage she's always wanted.

How are you going to work on improving your IC with her? What are her top ENs? Do you get any UA?

What Love busters are you guilty of?

Also, I would strongly think about getting away from those people that aren't friends of your marriage.

Brianhurts,

I have launched my program to fix the Lovebusters in my life as well as meeting her EN's. They were the disrespect, demands and angry outbursts. A counselor helped me immensely with that. She is very digital so I have made every moment a face to face priority to have intimate conversation as well as texting 3-5 times a day and instantly responding to her texts as she specifically said not having cell phone contact drove her nuts(also she and OM did a great deal over text and FB). She says her top EN's are IC /No Lovebusters, Financial Security, Affection, and Sex. I do not know what UA is. The friends are lifelong but she really is gravitating towards the one who is strengthening her spititual walk.

Sounds like you have decided to try to save your marriage. Good for you. Sounds like you have a reluctant spouse, you will need to Plan A your tail off.

As you have heard here, be very very wary of "marriage counseling". It should be called "divorce counseling" in my opinion, unless they are following Dr. Harley's plan.

I read in your thread where your wife hangs out with a "toxic wives club". She will need to get rid of them, if they are not friends of the marriage, they are your enemies.

I speak from experience on this one, my ex fell into a group of 4 husband haters. They all commiserated, all had affairs and all got divorced. Now none of them speak to each other, because they are all miserable.

NebDane, Thanks for the encouragement. I am Plan A'ing my tail off. You are right about "divorce counseling". We finally found a guy who does it for his church and he is very good. The first thing he told me is that he is about saving marriages so we had to sign a form stating we would be 100% honest with him and serious about reconciliation. There is no way to get rid of her "friends" fortunately none of them lives here so it's all text and email. She has definitely sought less of the three and more of the one who has challenged her spiritually to restore her faith in God. That makes me hopeful. You are right about these goofy people. They are all Christians to boot. I was amazed at the stuff they think. I was starting to struggle with the attentions of other women but Unwritten used a word that snapped me out of it, "predator". This has been so helpful, you probably have an idea but I still have to say, you have no idea how helpful all of you have been.

First off, has your WW got rid of Facebook as one of her EPs? Has she changed all her contact information?

Will she write a NC letter for you to send?

Here are some good things to listen to.

Beware of Bad Counselors
Anger Management 101

Tell us what you think.

Also here.
The Critical Importance of Undivided Attention

One more to understand more about what unwritten was telling you about "predators".

Vultures

Drew,

You wrote, They talk about how I wasn't meeting her need for intimate conversation, which is true, and so what she did was inevitable.

For people who don't have money for luxury goods it's not inevitable that they are going to rob a bank, and end up in jail. Nor was it inevitable that your WW should cheat on you, and damage her marriage and children.

Yep it's tough on the bank robber and your WW when their stories are in the headlines.

God Bless
Gamma

Sir, at this point you need to be using the plan in Surviving an Affair (by Dr. Willard Harley) as your only program. Don't deviate from it or try to mix Dr. Harley's methods with others because it needs to be followed precisely

Sir, she will need to find another job, since the night job enabled the affair she had.
This should be a condition of recovery.
Also, you cannot allow her to drive the recovery bus. She will likely use the counseling as a complaining session and it will just derail you from meaningful recovery.

You should respectfully say, "I feel that we need to follow the recovery plan in Surviving an Affair;"
" I am willing to work with you to create a loving romantic marriage"

(other more experienced posters can tell you how to respectfully get this issue to the front burner because this is a crucial time and you NEED TO FOLLOW DR. HARLEY'S METHODS, NOT BE ATTENDING A CHURCH COUNSELING PROGRAM)

The Cheaterville thing really set her off. We are back to square one. Any thoughts?

Ignore the anger, that just means the exposure hit home. If she is worried about Cheaterville which describes the OM, sounds like she is still in contact.
RED FLAG!

Hi Drew, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am just catching up on your thread and a couple of things stand out to me. The first is that she is working a night shift. Couples that work opposite shifts live parallel lives that make it impossible to create a romantic marriage. If you want to recover this, I would get on the same work shifts so you can live integrated lives. You should be going to bed together, getting up together and spending AT LEAST 20 hours of undivided attention time together. That is what it will take to recover your marriage. [after it has been affair proofed, that is]

The key to all of this is getting 20+ hours of UA time per week. The program does not work without this step. Dr Harley recommends 4- 4 hour dates meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment. This time [except for your SF time] should be spent outside of the home on romantic dates. <----this is how you restore the love to your marriage.

And I am assuming she has agreed to all the extraordinary precautions on the checklist?

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

Everyone,

I want to thank you for all of your help. After taking another look at what I was writing here I have no other emotiuon than shame and regret. While my wife is guilty of an affair my behavior, especially the language and vitriol has been anything but Christlike. I re-read my thread and cannot believe how ugly I am being. It is not at all how I feel normally. In fact I am very much in love with my wife and believe she is trying hard to put this behind her and restore our mariage as well. I am disgusted by my ugly behavior. It is in that vein that I am cancelling my account here and avoiding this situation as it has done some good but more harm. even spoke of her friends more harshly than they deserve. I do not know what was srong with me. Please keep us in your prayers.

Huh?

Your wife's AFFAIR has done harm. What 'harm' has MB or this forum done??? I'm not sure what situation you are avoiding, but avoiding the consequences of an affair, and avoiding the hard steps that need to be taken to recover from an affair, will lead you NO WHERE but in a battle scarred, unrecovered marriage that is WORSE than it was before.

Your choice, but leaving this forum in the middle of this marital crisis is the absolute WORSE thing you can do for yourself and your marriage.

Two things you should know before you go. 1) This forum is not a bunch of people who are just scarred from adultery and spouting their own opinions. It is a support forum on the Marriage Builders website, made up of people who believe in Dr. Harley's concepts because he has many many years of success helping couples overcome adultery, and people who have themselves recovered their marriages from adultery using his methods (or are working to do so, like you). 2) This forum is NOT just for the betrayed spouse. It is also for the WAYWARD spouse to seek support. We have many wayward spouses on here that are using Dr. Harley's methods to recover their marriages and create a better marriage than they have ever had. So, if your wife is really regretful and interested in recovery, she is welcome to come here for help too.

Pray to God but row for the shore Drew.

Drew
Don't leave. This stuff is hard and affairs made us all not act like we normally would. There is nothing wrong with you, that is the guilt, shame taking over. Most betrayed spouses feel this way and it is reinforced by the wayward.

Don't be afraid, although it is scary as hell. Your situation reads like so many others. You have already seen vets here predict behaviors, next steps, methods. You are not unique.
Don't abandon the Harley method, your chances of success are firmly rooted there, not elsewhere.
Prayer alone won't save you, remember God helps those that help themselves.

My ex wife was wayward. Actually she was a serial cheater. She got kind of cozy with one of my brother-in-law's friends while hanging out at his cabin. I had suspicions and ended up finding out though a friend that he was observed making out with my wife. I accused her and she didn't admit it, but seemingly cut of all contact.

Then I found the online chats. The ones that were intimate, and the ones propositioning men to come to my house while I was on a trip with my dad. She even had the courtesy to call me to see if I was coming home that night or in the morning. Call time was about a minute after he said he would come over.

Divorce papers served, she admitted she was wrong, and she was sorry, and it would never happen again. Told her sister, her mom, and my parents why I filed.

Found more chats a few months later. She didn't change like she said she would. But I didn't check on her. I didn't follow this plan. I just trusted that she would do the right thing because I thought I loved her and she said she would be good.

Did you want to know how that worked out for me? I divorced her after finding that she couldn't resist herself nor wanted to actually change. She is currently dating a guy that I presume is an OM, since his linkedin page states they worked together while I was married to her. And I remember the screen name with mike in it from back then, and his name is mike...

So I would suggest, if you want to stay with her, you do what they say here. Because your plan will more than likely not work, even if she says it will.

Drew Dr. Harley has the best plan to recover from an Affair and rebuild your marriage. Please do not let your WW's anger run you off. Her anger is natural after her dirty little secret has been exposed. Your marriage can survive her anger, but not her affair.

Sir, you can recover from this if you follow Dr. Harley's program in Surviving an Affair.
But you cannot recover from this if you decide to be meek and love her unconditionally.

How's it going?