Hello! I'm going to take some time to put things out neatly but I want to start by saying our marriage started as an open marriage, with carefully decided and agreed upon rules for outside relationships. This is something we both agree with and feel strongly about, and while outside relationships have caused problems before and now, it's a part of our relationship neither of us want to end and enjoy.

We've been married for 6.5 years, together for 8. My husband is a video game developer, a job that has long hours, and we currently live far from his job, 3 hours commute each day on top of his 9-10 hour days. I am a stay at home mom who has recently started her own business, and we have 2 children ages 2 and 6, our oldest is special needs.

He is currently also seeing a lovely woman with 3 children of her own, who lives about the same distance away from both us and his job as we are from his job, and so he spends 1 weekend day with her and 2 nights after work with her, and the other time at home. I am currently seeing a wonderful man, who is married and who's wife knows all about me and we are friends, and they have 3 children together. We see each other 1 night a week and 1 day on the weekend.

While we have had problems almost from the beginning with affection and appreciation from him, and physical attractiveness and domestic support from me, things really started getting bad when our eldest got his autistic diagnosis. My husband became obsessed with work, putting in additional hours, working when he was at home, all with the expectation (that his teachers and doctors all say is unrealistic as he is high functioning) that we will have to support him for the rest of his life and he won't be able to have a job or life because of his autism. He spent less time at home, less time with us, and became more distant.

When I became pregnant with our second child he stopped enjoying sex with me completely and became more distant, and entered into an emotional affair (yes, you can have an affair while in an open relationship. It happens when you stop considering your spouses feelings and obsess over your lover at your spouses expense). The affair lasted from 8 months pregnant until our daughter was about 6 months, a time when i foolishly supported his obsession and sacrificed my own needs and wants in the hopes if I stuck it out and was a good wife he would get over her. He did get over her (but still talks to her, which is something he won't quit) but I haven't ever been able to forgive him for it. Also, I became overweight by about 50 lbs after our second child and the depression I went into during his affair, and he now has zero sexual interest in me.

Since that affair things have slowly fallen apart. I've lost my ability to forgive mistakes and cope with our problems. While I used to never hold a grudge, now I seem to remember every time he does something that is hurtful to me and it all builds up. I'm not so much resentful that he is rarely home, which I understand is because of his job and commitment to his other girlfriend, but that he doesn't pay attention to us when he IS home. He is always either on his phone or his computer playing games with friends, and the best we get is 30 minutes of time a day on the few days he IS home. He not only doesn't help with chores at all, he won't even put his dirty clothes in the hamper or bring his dishes to the sink, or change a diaper, or if I've complained about it recetly he does it but makes a huge fuss the whole time. I *hate* nagging, I don't want to feel like his mother, but nothing ever gets done if I don't. He's also always late and never plans ahead, so I never know WHEN he will come home or not until maybe 2 hours before he does, and asking him to plan anything in advance makes him angry.

So, maybe I've made a mess of explaining this, but I don't know how to handle things. He swears he loves me and never wants us to seperate, but I've gotten to the point of feeling physically ill every time he is in the house. The stress of being in the same house as him eats at me until it hurts to breath. We don't "have time" to spend together, to see a counselor, or do anything else about it, and I refuse to force him to spend time with me or my children when he's made it clear that being with us makes him unhappy.

How do I help him enjoy being with us? How do I help him like doing things with his kids? How do you help someone turn into a husband and dad instead of a roommate and sperm donor?

I should add in I have plenty of my own offenses. I haven't lost the weight I gained, partly because I LIKE the way i look, and I feel no real motivation right now to change that for someone who isn't there for me and won't support me in loosing it. I'm not unhealthy overweight, but I know I could stand to loose 30-50 lbs. I've asked him to join me in diets and exercise so I'm not doing it alone but it's another thing he has no time for.

I also don't keep the house clean. I stopped caring much about that. We rarely if ever have guests and I hate doing it, it's something I need to work on but often feel overwhelmed or depressed. I am an awful cook and haven't been better at making good meals for him.

I know that I nag, complain, and use selfish demands and disrespectfil judgements, especially in the last 2 years. I also have some annoying habits that I know he wished I would change, and I'm very emotional when I feel judged, which leads him to not tell me about the things I do that he hates.

He has frequent angry outbursts, stamping his feet or thrwing things when he is frustrated, and my constant requests for him to be more involved in our life leave him frustrated and angry and judged. I don't know how to help him meet my needs without making him feel hated and inadequate.

This program is for couples in open marriages who are interested in leaving that lifestyle, yes, but it does not work in adulterous marriage.

Are you interested in that?

You have basically forfeited your marriage to adultery and there isn't anything we can do for you unless that stops. Women suffer serious physical and emotional problems when they have to compete with another woman for their husband. That is where you are. Dr Harley is a clinical psychologist and he will only allow women to stay in such emotionally traumatic situations for no longer than 4 weeks. You are going to destroy your health, physical and mental by living like this.

Your husband and moved on and checked out. This is a direct result of your chosen lifestyle. He might "love" you in a caring way, but he is certainly not in love with you anymore. This is what happens in open marriages.

Welcome to MB.

The answer to your thread title is that yes, this programme will work in open marriages. The way to make it work is to end the "open" part of the open marriage; the term "open marriage" is an oxymoron, anyway.

Swingers can set all the rules they like about not getting emotionally involved with third parties, but as you can see, and as common sense should tell you, if we allow a person to meet our emotional needs, the likely result is that we fall in love with them. That is what your H has done with this woman.

Additionally, it seems (from your second post) that you are not meeting his most important emotional needs. If you read the basic concepts written by Dr Harley, you will understand how your "open marriage", coupled with your (individual) refusal to meet his needs, has affected his Love Bank.

Your marriage is poison to you.

We are not interested in ending that part of our relationship at this time, no, although it's something we may revisit in the future, as we would any other decision in our marriage.

I'm aimply looking for help in helping my husband enjoy our company again. Our relationships outside our marriage have never been a problem, outside of the time I was dishonest about my aversion to a situation. Neither one of us believes in monogamy, and because we both enthusiastically agreed to it before marriage and revisit our feelings on the subject often to be sure we are okay with it, I don't see it as an issue.

If you all feel we can't be helped here because of our life choices, i will respect that.

Leaving out the issue of not having guests because you don't like doing so (and which you should not do, if you don't like doing so)...

...what do you think is likely to be the effect of your behaviour on his love for you? Isn't it obvious that his love will be killed by these things?

You will end up having a nervous breakdown if you don't put a stop to this insanity. That will make you so unattractive that the marriage will really be over. When you have a breakdown, the OW will move in and take your place.

That is exactly what happened to my brother and his Xwife. My brother had an affair, my SIL had a nervous breakdown and their 9 year old autistic son moved in with him and the OW. <-------------that is where you are headed.

Your husbands affair is killing you. If you want things to change you have to stop taking poison.

Do you understand that your marriage is on the path to divorce?

You have two children (mine are the same age, oldest is autistic too) who are likely going to end up in a custody split. Surely you realize that is a terrible outcome.

Fact is that obviously your husband has fallen out of love, doesn't seem to like you much, he irritates you, you both seek outside partners to meet your needs, and seem to put your own self-fulfilling desires ahead of your vows and children.

No one can help you because your lifestyle is poison. You have chosen to take poison.

You are headed to a nervous breakdown and it will happen very fast.

The kind of marriage that Dr Harley created this programme for is traditional marriage. As he writes:

"Traditional wedding promises go something like this:

Will you take this (woman, man) to be your (wife, husband), to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love (her, him), comfort (her, him), honor and keep (her, him) in joy and in sorrow, in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others be faithful to (her, him) so long as you both shall live.

These and similar vows emphasize three core elements of marriage that have proven to be very valuable over the centuries. First, a marriage is a permanent relationship (as long as you both shall live). Second, it is sexually exclusive (forsaking all others be faithful). And third, it is a relationship of extraordinary care (love, comfort, honor, and keep in joy and in sorrow, in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health)."

Full article here: What's the Purpose of a Wedding?

You can be helped here, to have a marriage that is lifelong, sexually exclusive and extraordinarily caring. You can't be helped to succeed in your open marriage.

So, please tell us if this woman is married?

Because you realize, she is meeting his needs and you are not. He seems to prefer time with her as he is certainly not playing video games there.

He will leave soon. As long as you persist in this "marriage" where you have superpowers to meet each others needs AND sleep with others AND raise two young children... Good luck.

I will also mention, you know us with disabled kids have a massive divorce rate. For goodness sake, you need MORE investment in your family, not this pipe dream. Pipe dream, seriously. Look what has happened!

My husband is not currently in an affair. He's in a loving relationship with someone who meets his current emotional need for sexual fulfillment, something which he stopped wanting from me 3 years ago and which he's admitted would not continue even if we were both monogamous and I lost all the weight I had gained. I am also in a loving and happy relationship with a man I care for, and part of a loving family in the form of his wife and children who have brought me into their family and accepted me, fulfilling my own sexual needs and at this time filling my needs for affection that my husband has been unable to fill.

I have hopes for working on my own issues, and have begun to work on those issues (reminding myself to thank him for his hard work, cleaning the house more to his standards, and giving him clear ideas on how he could make me feel appreciated and loved) and purchasing a P90 program that my lover has agreed to join with me so I am not doing weight loss program on my own. What I can't figure out is how to help him learn to enjoy my company or that of my children (a problem he also has with his lover, as she also complains about his over-use of his phone while in her company and retreating to his computer instead of joining for quality time.)

I can see that the only response I will get here is to end our individual relationships outside the marriage. At this time the only way I could do that would be to also leave my husband, as it would be removing the only support I have had to keep me going in this relationship after years of feeling unloved and unappreciated.

She is not married, she is widowed

Rosie, my dear, you do not have to live like this. You can have a marriage with a man who loves you and only you. You can be CHERISHED and CARED FOR and ADORED. You can have all that.

But you cannot ever have that in an open marriage. You have been sold a bill of goods. Men can live adulterous lifestyles and fare just fine so this is no skin off his nose. But this lifestyle- where you are in competition with other women - will kill you.

Your lifestyle is killing you. And you know it. If you want to change this, we will help you try and save your marriage. If that doesn't work, we can help you get safely out of this toxic, poison marriage.