Absolutely!

I'll be tuning in for that!! I was under the mistaken impression that my wife would get over her anger about exposure in a matter of weeks.

Ax,
Just letting you know that I've been following your thread and I'm rooting for you. I'm in a similar situation with a WW myself so I can certainly empathize.

Thanks Pius. This is really a great community here on MB.

Don't underestimate the impact this had on her. With the way Scumbag is talking to her, you're starting to look more attractive.

She didn't even open it today, it or the chocolate. Doesn't even look like she touched it. I'll just continue to leave it out until she opens it (or she trashes it unread). Never texted about the photos and didn't pick them up. Oh, the roller coaster of the wayward. She was polite and nice yesterday, so very distant today.

If she trashes it, calmly write another.

That's my plan

Oh, man, you are good! I wish every husband who showed up here was this good.

I listened to your show today. It was helpful. Thank you for asking those questions. I hope your wife is not someone who thinks that life just "happens." Do you think that's who she is?

She definitely feels that romantic feelings just "happen" or are divinely given. There's some background I shared with Dr. Harley that I haven't put on here, but I've basically heard her say that verbatim. He also analyzed some of her writings (such as the email and FB post) and arrived at this conclusion.

My mom works in child psychology so I can say that psychologists see patterns in ways that the rest of us do not. They can identify behaviors very quickly, just from watching someone describe themselves or others. My mom can pick up something from watching or talking to a kid for a very brief amount of time, and she's nearly always right. Think of a mechanic looking at your car...psychologists are like this with the mind and behavior.

It's tough with WW to say for sure because she is also big on DIY and hard work when it comes to her career, but I think there's another part of her that struggles with handling disappointment or change and instead of confronting it decides it is God's handiwork rather than consequences of her choices.

He is right that her willingness to get on board with MB will decide whether or not we R if their affair ends before divorce. I want to save our marriage but only in a way where we actually recover. It's non-negotiable for me.

I thought his answer about exposure was great. Hope that helps some of you other BHs out there.

Yep. I might get a chance to use that answer this weekend.

Definitely. I just listened to the show. I copied down Dr.Harley's exposure statement verbatim. This was the most helpful show I've listened to.

My WW is also a firm believer that love just happens. It doesn't seem very hopeful but I hope I can convince her that recovery is worth a try for other reasons and change her mind about what "just happens" later. I know she is smart enough to understand if she could see through the fog.

Here's your show.
Radio Clip of axslinger85's show

At least my wife doesn't just think that love happens. She understands that it is enjoyable interactions that meet our needs and admits she had too loose boundaries and didn't think that because it was the internet that there was risk. She realizes now.

It sounds like your WW isn't too deep in the fog anymore. My WW might never admit to boundary issues. She has always had OS friendships. After listening to Ax's show I'm pretty worried about that.

Should be, they's why EP are so important.

As for my wife's fog lifting, maybe...
He's been harassing her after repeated requests to stop contacting her, being demanding, very disrespectful, calling her abominable names and insults, having AO meltdowns, calling and threatening my Grandma, constantly telling her to be selfish, selfish, selfish and telling her all the people in her life don't really care about her because they're not supporting what she wants right now, she's starting to see the kind of guy he really is. Selfish and a liar.

She told our grandma that if it really was him that called and threatened, "You get him." She caught him in a lie about what I said to him (he's been misrepresenting what I told him, claimed I said she's always been easy to manipulate and everything would soon be back to normal with me abusing her). My letter, kindness and patience this week, my working with our son with a new game I created (using TAGTeach) to help clean up a few pronunciation issues, and our conversation last night probably all helped too. She was shocked and surprised by our conversation last night. She actually told me I was the BH she knew several times, because I was very respectful. She seemed MUCH more her normal reasonable self last night.

Apparently she told our Grandma that it was a very good conversation and gave her hope. She's seeing changes and significant effort on my part, and is willing to allow me to do more than she has been for the last 3 weeks. Wow, it's been 3 weeks, doesn't seem that long and seems much longer at the same time.

Axe,
I listened to the broadcast and your questions. Here are a few thoughts.

1) There are some advantages to being in Plan A with your wife out of the house. Her absence actually helps you to avoid the injury of her infidelity and blatant lack of caring. This in turn enables you to more easily avoid DJ's, SD's, and AO's, all of which would be a natural consequence of living with someone cheating on you.

Meanwhile, her affair partner may start to do those things. Remember that the vast majority of affairs don't make it past 2 years. So while that creep starts to show his true colors, you can show your wife how much you love her and what a great husband you are from a distance. Marcos dropped one of my favorite MB "parables" in PM18's thread yesterday. You may have saw it, but I'll post it again:

"Rocks in a River: You find yourself on the bank of a wide river. It is too wide to jump across, and yet you still need to cross it. What do you do? You start picking up rocks and throwing them into the river. (These rocks are each small affectionate thing you do for your W). For the first 499 rocks, you see the rock hit the water, and then it dissapears. These rocks are sinking and landing on the bottom of the river. Eventually you get to rock #500 and it hits the water and part of it is sticking up above the surface. You now realize you are getting somewhere. You can finally see progress. For the first 499 rocks, you knew they were stacking up, but you had no proof other than common sense telling you that they were building up. We have to approach our relationships now as if every piece of affection is one of those rocks. We will not see any progress until a number of rocks have been thrown. However, just because we are not seeing these first 499 rocks does not mean they are not having an impact. Believe that they are, because they are."

From a distance, you can drop those rocks in the river when opportunity strikes. My advice is to pace it. Don't over do it. Seize opportunities. All the while, be stout-hearted, humble, and make yourself look attractive physically to her should she start coming back around. Wear neatly pressed cloths, polish your shoes, keep the house tidy.

These things will have an immediate impact. You just won't see it. Some of your deeds will be remembered by her later when she is out of the fog. But as the parable suggests, they start to build up.


2) Regarding Exposure. No one ever likes being exposed. The reason your wife uses it as a reason for wanting to leave you is because she is in the fog. You must understand that when a person is in the fog they JUSTIFY all of their misdeeds and find a way to transfer the blame to the BS. Exposure provides them the perfect FALSE rationale that they are looking for. I remember my wife looking at me with piercing hatred after I exposed. Her resentment and anger lasted for many months. All the while, I'm thinking to myself: She's mad at me? What the hell. What temerity. What nerve. What hypocrisy. (Fortunately, I kept these thoughts to myself.) She absolutely hated me for exposing. But guess what? She eventually got over it.

If you ever meet your WW and she brings it up again,I would say, "I believe in the sanctity of marriage, ours especially. And I exposed your affair with the hope that those we know would encourage you to end your affair and return to me."

Say no more about exposure. She won't accept your reason no matter how reasonable it is. But it is important for her to know that you don't accept her affair and you don't accept the notion that exposure is a valid reason to divorce a spouse.

3) Dr. Harley seemed to imply that your wife is a renter. Was she frequently in and out of relationships before she met you? Were there other opposite sex friends or affairs that she had in the past? Do you think that once she is out of the fog she may be willing to learn Marriage Builder concepts and recover the marriage?

Her affair is doomed. The question is, when she is out of the fog, will she be willing to take on all of the Extraordinary Precautions required to fully recover and have an enduring happy marriage.

On this day two years ago my wife and I entered into a wonderful, life-changing recovery. If I had looked into a crystal ball three years ago and was able to see my wife and I today, I would be floored. It was hard to fathom back then that marital recovery was possible after all of the damage that had been done. Yet, today we are both so happy and grateful that we were able to survive the affair and rebuild our marriage into something even more special than it was before. It took over a year-and-a-half of Plan A and eventually Divorce for us to get to the point of recovery.

Had I not dropped the rocks in the river, I don't believe I would have gotten her back. Had I given up and resigned myself to her affair, the way that your WW is resigning herself to ephemeral and whimsical feelings of romance with a freaking street vendor, we would have never made it.

As Dr. Harley and Mrs. Harley said, the best you can do is do your best. This is a process and it takes a long time. You have been strong, controlled, and smart all the way through. We are pulling for you.

Thanks for the feedback and the parable Justthe3ofus.

(1) The question Joyce had as my "question" was kind of a misunderstanding as I was describing it to her (my fault). I had kind of meant more of "how to Plan A" in my situation, which Dr. Harley addressed as well.

Your points make sense. I've backed off on the emails, and instead I'm doing a daily journal of them and then sending that to her with my next care pack which will be Christmas-themed with a few tasteful gifts and a card.

And that also makes sense about Plan A being easier with her out of the house. I've often thought how much chance I'd have to say something wrong if I was talking to her on the phone or in person.

(2) I have avoided responding to her comments about exposure so far, but we have a lot of BHs who are getting hammered on it on the phone or in person so it was kind of a community question for all of our benefit. I think face1, myself and pm18 have all heard the same thing almost verbatim about "I can't trust you!" so I was curious how Dr. H would handle it.

(3) Yes, I've been the longest relationship she's ever had by quite a large margin. I'm not sure she'd ever been with anyone for over a few months before we started dating, though she had been with a lot of guys. She was in a string of self-destructive relationships at that time, kinda sowing wild oats phase if you will. When we got together that was a big deal for her, she wanted to get in a relationship that was on the straight and narrow. Someone she felt comfortable introducing to her parents, going to church with, etc. So I was the white knight.

OS friendships were a problem topic in pre-marital counseling (she didn't want to give them up), but she swore them off for the first 2 or 3 years of marriage. She had some guys get closer to her than I was comfortable with during dating, but I understand this is not necessarily a problem in the MB framework since we were not married.

Definitely the last few years there were conflicts between us about how close she was allowing guys to get to her (including the person who became OM), and so it is a misgiving of mine about going forward with her. I don't think she's had other affairs, but it was just waiting to happen with all of the things we were doing wrong.

I don't know if she will get on board with MB, ultimately. I would say the odds Dr. H has put on the situation are accurate, I've felt that way almost from the beginning. I don't even know if I can avert divorce, and if a D is finalized, I will probably move on having fought the good fight. BUT...I do want to do my best as all of you have done such an awesome job encouraging me to do. And it feels good to be doing due diligence here.

I see how much she's walked away from (literally her whole adult life other than OM and her career, not just me) and I can see it breaking either way. Either digging in her heels in her new way of living, or breaking down and wanting to find her way back.

Can't control what she does, only what I do. If she does come back and is genuine and accountable to the MB program, I will proceed tentatively. We don't have kids yet, but I do want to have kids and before I jump into that boat with her I'll have to see some changes that make me feel safe. Calling her a renter up to this point would not be inaccurate as she did not communicate needs very often or like it when I communicated mine. I'd need to see her become a buyer, basically.

We'll just have to see what happens, I'm at peace with either outcome at this point. Once nice thing about a short marriage is we don't have substantial property or custody issues to settle, just dealing with the loss of the relationship and the tragedy for the families involved. That and I don't want my wife to throw her life away with people like OM. I worry much more for her than myself.