Markos and I had an agreement (in writing, and signed) that if he ever had an angry outburst at me again, he would leave the house for at least a year while he got help.

He has never had an angry outburst again.

You should offer that agreement to your wife.

Let me break down the steps for you.
1. Learn to manipulate the GSR meter by alternating between thinking of stressful thoughts and thinking of relaxing thoughts.

2. Using the meter, learn to stay relaxed WHILE thinking of stressful thoughts.

3. Using the meter, learn to stay relaxed WHILE talking about problems with your wife.

Each step is more complicated than the last, and takes a lot of practice. But it's essential that you go through these steps, one by one.

You are on step 1, btw.

Prisca, I tried to tell the story in the least self justifying way possible and without minimizing and yet I read by your response how I am still justifying. I am not the same poster that started this thread. i've grown to become the family's head or at least trying to. I don't feel entitled to punish, but I felt as though my old self possessed me. I have relaxed in all previous episodes, including her being 15 minutes late on my limited 30 min lunch break, and I relaxed and only wrote that down as love busting exchange letters and with this water thing I should have walked away but I didn't with fear there could be a pipe broken that needed urgent hands on and when I realized it was a running water accident, my old self had already possessed me.

I think I'll do what you said, I'll get that device and propose I leave if any more AO I will be the one who packs up and leaves. With the lovebusting sort of under control we were doing so good, i felt connected to her in a deep way.

You should have walked away, anyway. In order to protect your wife, you need to make sure you go to extraordinary lengths to never have another angry outburst. Even if that means a broken pipe floods the house for an extra 30 minutes. Walk away and take the time to calm down.

A flooded house is much easier to repair than the devastation left after an angry outburst.

Dr. Harley told markos that sometimes he just needed to sit there and look dopey. You don't need to react immediately. Walk away and calm down.

And start doing those exercises so that someday down the road you can face the situation of her leaving the bath running and instantly react calmly.

Do you realize just how threatening and abusive you are being? This is not just about losing your cool. I don't know that you fully grasp the magnitude of the things you do and say to your wife.

Locking her in the bathroom with you and cornering her with threats while you are *insane* is abusive and threatening. I can only imagine what is going through her head at the moment, like a caged animal. I would have kicked you in the ***s and fled the house, because I would have felt my life was being threatened.

And that does not even take into consideration the VERBAL attack.

You have fought hard to stay in your home while you worked out your own anger issues without help. This is a very very selfish decision as you continue to put your wife at risk, not to mention destroy any hope of a marriage that you have.

It's very clear from your post: You still feel entitled to your anger. If the reason is "good" enough, than your anger is justified.

My son left an upstairs bathroom faucet running, and I came home to a water damage on three levels of my home - over $20k and 3-4 mos of repair work that had to be done. At the time I was under EXTREME stress - having just recently learned that my then-husband had moved into another woman's house, he was starting to screw with me financially and that I was going to have to file for divorce.

I did not have an AO. Not even close to one.

Your problem with your AOs is very dangerous, and I am in real fear for your W and your family. I think Dr Harley would suggest you move out NOW and not return until you have this under better control.

I think you are playing with fire and shouldn't take any more risks with your M and your family's safety.

Will you write and as Dr Harley about this? Tell him some forum members think you should move out now because this has become a safety issue but you feel you can stay and will leave if there are any more AOs. Make sure to tell him what happened during the last AO. See what he advises.

STOP TALKING ABOUT HER AFFAIR. STOP IT.

If you want to recover, YOU MUST STOP IT.

She has every right to separate from you because of your AOs, regardless of whether or not she had an affair in the past. Your anger put her in that position -- and to protect her, you must allow her that right.

Fine Prisca, post deleted. I was only rxplaining the connection between separation and affair.

Fine, but if you want your marriage to recover, don't talk about the affair.

I'll post back when there is progress on my side.

This is a question for Prisca and Markos.

After you both signed the agreement that next AO Markos would leave the house for a year, were you two dating and talking and recovering and fulfilling each other's EN?

We signed the document, but my wife isn't talking to me unless it is something related to daughters. I invited her out and tried to kiss her and she backed out and she highlighted we can stay in the same household that's all we have actually signed and we are inder the same roof but she is emotionally divorced. I asked her what that meant and she said that we'll be together until our daughters are 18 then we can split. Okay, that doesn't sound encouraging.

Then I said lets split right now then and she said okay, so I said lets divorce then and she said okay, so I said okay we divorce but w/ the condition that you can't date anyone and if you do, I get the girls and she said okay. So all her answers are okay. Okay stay, okay leave, okay divorce. in the house everything is also okay. Isn't what she was taught to not punish?

I didn't feel like trying this program at first and I did. Just slipped, didn't get that the GSR but now I did, with biofeedback and a CD but whats the point in doing it if she won't talk to me. What am I supposed to do now?

I asked if we separate if we would date. She answered that if I stay, leave or divorce, she decided to pursue her career. Triggering for me. Same words from the past, but fine, Prisca, I am not writing it down. Pursue what??? She is almost done. What is the point of studying so much? But fine, no DJ of the millions of thoughts I have regarding that. I personally think its time for her to get a job and leave research which pays a missery, but thats my thought. At the moment I don't know what to do because I called her and asked how she was. She replied busy, I have work to do. Work with your little boy friends I replied. Work with my research group and hanged up. Okay, maybe that was DJ, both sides though. She hanged up on me.

I can't help but visualize her at work, obsessed? Possessive? Yes. After all, she is my wife, she is "emotionally divorced" and she is in a male only environment. Markos and Prisca, What now?

In actual fact it took awhile. Prisca worked really hard while I was out of the house to be a very attractive wife and meet my emotional needs. But after I was back in my balance in my account in her love bank was so low that there were many times she didn't feel willing to meet my emotional needs. It was up and down for quite awhile. When I got to despairing about this, I got my doctor to put me on antidepressant medication, which helped me to hold out and meet her emotional needs long enough to change things permanently.


Right now your balance in your account in your wife's love bank is below zero.

The good news is, if you completely eliminate withdrawals and learn to make large love bank deposits as a habit, you have the chance to change this. You'll have to win her back.

I recommend antidepressants and listening to the Marriage Builders Radio show daily. Also, look at the advice I give to other men to learn how to make more love bank deposits.


Don't do that! If she wants to divorce you, let her do it without discussing it with you. Discussing divorce will make withdrawals from your account in her Love Bank.

Just tell her you don't want to get divorced.

If you decide you do want to get divorced, don't discuss it with her. Just go get a divorce. It's easy.

You'll have to change how she feels.

Marriage Builders is a plan for doing that. In fact, you've already done it before! And you can do it again.

It will be frustrating with her being not willing to talk to you, but if you act upset with her it will make love bank withdrawals. So the only way to turn it around is to just keep inviting her to do stuff with you and be with you. Let her decline. ALWAYS ALWAYS let her decline to talk to you if she wants, decline to be with you if she wants, back out on whatever she agreed to do with you if she wants. Don't try to debate with her or tell her she should be talking to you or she should be giving you a chance - telling her what she should do is judgmental and will make a withdrawal from your account in her love bank, which is the opposite of what you want.

After a few ups and downs you start to realize that you've turned her feelings around before and you can do it again. That will help you to feel less frustrated.

If you can't keep a lid on the frustration, and you are starting to get demanding, disrespectful, or angry, see your doctor and get some short term antidepressants prescribed so you can control yourself until you've improved the situation by following the plan.

So you're still bringing up the affair, I see ....

ProChoice, you've got a lot of work to do, and you keep sabotaging yourself by making little jabs like this one.

If you're going to keep bringing up the past, or if you're going to keep threatening divorce, then you might as well just get a divorce right now. You're never going to win her back that way.

You had a HUGE angry outburst just a short time ago. I can tell you from experience that the occasional angry outbursts AFTER my husband agreed to do the program and agreed to protect me were WORSE than they were when he would have angry outbursts every day. It was the ultimate betrayal of trust in my mind when he had agreed to protect me, then attacked me anyway.

You've got a long way to go to repair the damage you've done. But you continue to inflict MORE damage. If you can't reign yourself in immediately, separate and protect your wife from yourself.

That's a judgmental thought. You need to get out of the habit of saying things like that, even when you are not talking to her. Any statements about what she "should" do is disrespectful. She is a big girl and can decide for herself what she wants to do and can decide afterward if she's pleased with the decision or not.

You could say "You might be able to earn more money doing something besides research," and then she could decide if that means anything to her or not. Let the decision be hers. She may not care about more money. She definitely doesn't want you to try to educate her! That's judgmental.


OUCH! DON'T FIGHT WITH HER.

It's like you have an arsenal of nuclear weapons, and here you sent one off. Do you know who wins when there's a nuclear war? (Hint: nobody.)

Stuff like this only makes it worse. If you want her to talk to you and let you work to recover your marriage, this kind of thing will make her take LONGER to let you do that.

If you want to change her feelings, you'll need to completely eliminate love bank withdrawals like this. If you don't feel like doing that, just go get a divorce without talking to her about it. Or take antidepressants.


Just focus on your side. If you make withdrawals, it doesn't matter if she makes withdrawals or not. It still makes it take LONGER for her feelings to change.

It might be "fair" for both sides to get to make withdrawals, but every withdrawal is STUPID, fair or not, if you want her to start spending time with you and bring the good times back.

PC, can I make a humble observation? From following this thread, I see you making a determination to change time and time again, and then when you slip up, you get frustrated with your wife for reacting negatively to your slip up. It's unreasonable for you to get angry at her for getting angry at you when her anger is completely justified.

I can see that she makes mistakes that are admittedly very frustrating (like leaving the water running and forgetting). The thing is, her mistakes are not marriage-ending mistakes, yours are. Her past affair is not a trump card.

I encourage you to focus on your AO's and stop throwing up your hands and deciding to give up when you mess up and she naturally gets upset. Markos and Prisca have helped me to realize that my own AO's were enough to justify divorce. I encourage you to stop and think about how destructive AO's are and vow never to have another one. Also realize that your wife is justified in divorcing you over them and that every AO is another reason why she should divorce you.

Your wife's affair was inexcusable, but your multiple and ongoing AO's are just as inexcusable. I say this as someone who is already divorced, so my opinions are worth less than dirt, but I thought it might help, since I'm someone (like Markos) who has had a tendency for AO's.

Awesome post, nmwb!!

Prochoice,

do not get discouraged. You have begun your journey on the road that will lead your family out of this mess and unto better horizons. Your taking the high road in this difficult situation has resonated with your wife and her reactions were filled with hopefulness and the expectation that you would be strong and the two of you would be happy.
Because of this optimism it is natural that she would be extra shocked when your taker let you slip up.

You have expected a lot of yourself. You have tried to suppress your angry outbursts, but it takes time to get this habit so ingrained in your brain, that the angry outburst part of your brain takes the back seat to the intelligent part of the brain.

Not the person who does everything right the first time will win the prize. The real heroes are the ones who slip up, stumble, fall, but not keep lying in the dirt. The truely succesful are the ones who get up, pat the dirt from their clothes and learn from their mistakes. One mistake, even a grand and impressive one, does not make you a failure. On the contrary, you will be better prepared for the pitfalls ahead, when you take this as a warning and analyze the situation for things that YOU will do differently next time, as you are the only one you can control.

As you have experienced, your wife is not in the position to turn your marriage around at this point. Don't let her lack of enthusiasm right now throw you off track. She is in withdrawal and you can expect her to feel that the two of you will never work and she won't have any of it.

This would be distressing to anyone, but do not let it get to you too much, it is a distraction if you let yourself be drawn into fruitless discussions with her. You have every chance to succeed. You are the one she loved and married and you are the father of her children. No man could ever make her as happy as you once your marriage is back on track and better than before.
Logic is on your side (don't tell her) and you have already shown that you are very able to make your marriage better.

On angry outbursts
The treacherous thing about angry outburts is that they sneak up on you when you do not expect it. Once anger overtakes your brain, not only is your intelligence out of order, but you feel totally and utterly justified in what happens after that. Once you are overwhelmed with anger, you feel that you not only have the right, but practically the moral obligation to punish the object of your anger (that worm brought it on himself of course). At this point, self control is out of the window, because anger tells us we are justified in shooting and killing the enemy.

If we could only see ourselves in this position, if our work colleagues could see us... we would be utterly embarrassed of the things we say and do in anger. But in the moment, and that is the thing, WE FEEL GOOD. Anger feels justified and good. We are on top of it all, all knowing, mighty, our muscles strong and our senses sharpened. That is why it is so enticing.

Just ask someone who stormed into the principal's office not long ago to give her a piece of my mind. I felt extremely intelligent and justified after I told her what I thought of her decisions regarding my child and slamming the door behind me.
It felt somehow less good when I apologized for my outburst two days later, after I realized I must have looked like an idiot, and frankly I was. The downside of anger: no matter how dumb her decision was and no matter how justified my case was, reacting in anger made ME the one who had to apologize and weakened my case considerably. Also, she never looked at me quite the same...
Anger makes us look like idiots.

That is why Prisca is right. Unless and until you nip the anger in the bud and are able to relax and have your intelligent brain think it over, you are still in stage one (as am I, buying a sensor from amazon will be my next step I presume).
Your anger feels good, but once it subsides, your intelligence looks around and sees the damage that has been done so needlessly. You want your hard work to bear fruits, but anger chops off the entire tree to kill a louse.

Do keep up your good work. You may not see the results right away, but you are not here to win the battle, you are here to strategically win the war. Studying for tests is no pleasure, but you do it, because attaining a degree brings a better life later on.
Do not lose sight of your ultimate goal. A happy family for your (3) girls and a good relationship where your needs will be met and you will feel good, knowing that you led your family through hardship to better times.