My husband and I have been married for 3.5 years and together a total of 7.5 years. I am 24 and he is 26.

My husband announced to me one month ago today that he had had doubts about the viability of our marriage for up to two years and no longer thought our incompatible differences could be overcome. I was completely blindsided. I definitely felt like we had "typical" marriage issues (disagreements over finances, sex drives, etc.) but none that warranted a separation or divorce. He wrote me along letter outlining all of the ways were would always be incompatible, including his desire to "live to work," my overall pessimistic personality, our differing political/religious beliefs, and the lack of time we have spent with his family. Keep in mind, the only two things I ever had any clue about being a problem were his work needs and my personality.

I have spent the past month pouring over conflicting advice about what to do to try and salvage our relationship. My husband has not made any plans to move out or separate. He does not mention the word divorce. We have also started a marriage coaching program with a pro-marriage coach. However, he tells me things like "I feel secure when I think about a future without you" and "I am frustrated by the coaching process because I feel like I know how it is going to end and it will only cause more pain as a result." Essentially, the writing is on the wall for him and he appears to be only going through the motions out of guilt.

All that being said, however, we still enjoy time together and even went on a weekend trip to visit some family last week. I have made a greater effort to be physically/sexually affectionate and he has responded to that favorably. However, I'm fairly certain he feels guilty over it and thinks he is 'using me' because of his current feelings. When we don't talk about our relationship things seem to go well, but when we do things like the feeling communications exercises our coach gives us, he gets very uncomfortable and withdraws after we are finished.

I have acquired the "His Needs, Her Needs" book as well as "Love Busters" and have started reading them. I definitely can identify where I have "lovebusted" him in the past (I did not give him enough admiration or physical affection) and am working on correcting all my past behaviors. However, I don't know where to proceed with him anymore. There is a lot of conflicting advice about whether or not I should be "pursuing him" and whether or not we should even be having conversations about our relationship right now. Some people say I should be 'getting a life' and not doing anything to engage with him right now, and it just doesn't feel right.

I asked him to fill out the emotional needs questionnaire but I don't know if he will or not. He is very withdrawn emotionally and is all but convinced we will never be in love again and we can never be happy. How can I repair our marriage if he has given up? I'd like to try to get him to commit to doing MB 100% and then if it doesn't "work," reassess what he wants.

I actually submitted this post to MB radio and I've been accepted to be on the show, so I look forward to see what Dr. Harley has to say to me.

From my reading of this forum, I expect most of you will tell me H is probably having an affair. He of course has denied an affair since day 1. I have only had a chance to look at his e-mail, which turned up nothing other than the fact that he is reading the book "Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay." Clearly he is conflicted. He basically works off of his phone so he has already had it close to him since our earliest days. I cannot access it outside of him sleeping, which would still be incredibly difficult since a) he sleeps with it next to his head and b) he is a light sleeper. I cannot really afford to pay for a PI right now. If I try to install software, he will find it since he is a programmer on the side. I'm at a lost at what to do with that.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Why do you think we would think such a thing?

Because that seems to be the script for most of these sudden blindsides. H has told me he doesn't think he can love me like a husband should love a wife, which I suppose you could read as another version of "I love you but I don't love you anymore."

Do I think he is having an affair? No. But a lot of people don't and they are wrong. I am not ruling it out, but I am not running with it either I guess.

The reason we think this is because it is almost ALWAYS due to an affair. So anything we tell you to do will be a waste of time. Some folks are sneakier than others and there are a couple of situations where it took a year or two to uncover, but I can only think of 1 situation where an affair was not the cause. And in that case, I believe it was because the husband didn't snoop.

So if we assumed there was no affair [not on the basis of any facts or evidence] and there actually IS an affair, then we will have wasted our valuable time and your time by giving you the wrong advice. And while we are giving you bad advice, the affair becomes more and more entrenched.

In your case, you don't think he is having an affair because you asked him, not because you actually investigated. Well, that is not a way to find out because every cheater denies it.

Just because I don't "think" he is having an affair doesn't mean it isn't true. I'm not naive. I would like to investigate more, but I feel like it's going to be really hard to do that for the reasons I mentioned in that last paragraph. Any workarounds for those challenges are appreciated.

See, all of the issues you cite can be easily overcome. Compatibility, for example is created. It is not an accident. Romantic love is CREATED through specific steps. All of the issues he cites are easily resolved. So why does he still want a divorce?

IF he is actually looking for solutions, he should be THRILLED to read this article which solves every one of his issues: How to Create Your Own Plan to Resolve Conflicts and Restore Love to Your Marriage

However, if he doesn't embrace this, it means he is not actually looking for solutions. And if he is not, that should be a huge red flag about his motivations.

How about going out tomorrow and purchasing two VARs (voice activated recorder)? They are relatively inexpensive, about $40 each at Best Buy. You could hide one in his vehicle, and one around your home (choose a place where he goes to use his phone in private).

It is doubtful he would find the spyware on his phone. I would check into teen safe and flexispy. Another thing you can do is put a voice activated recorder under his car seat. You can velcro it under the seat.

I totally agree with you. All of the issues he presented to me are not deal breakers or reasons to divorce. When I've tried to share with him that "love is a verb" and that we can recapture what was lost, he has expressed feelings like "you cannot force someone to be in love" and "you are suggesting I can pick anyone off the street and love them." He seems totally opposed to the idea that love that was lost can be regained. Our marriage coach has carefully made similar statements that all of our issues can be overcome if we put in action a plan to address them. Last night, H acknowledged that "there may have been a time when we could have fixed things." I don't know if he is realizing that things didn't have to go doomsday the moment he gave up, or if he is in a fog from a physical or emotional affair.

I should also mention I've looked at all his phone records but since he works from his phone he takes calls all day long from work people and they constantly change so I have no clue how to decipher the calls.

What is the marriage coach's plan to save your marriage and resolve his complaints?

I suspect he agreed to go to "counseling" so he could say he "tried" when he dumps you for his OW. Because he is obviously not interested in solutions.

Marriage coach believes we need to rebuild emotional intimacy and complete honesty before the conflicts begin to be addressed. This was our first week doing actual "work" since before that he was trying to get information from us individually and then was on vacation. This week, we are supposed to spend time every night discussing our days/feelings/thoughts for a set period of time using the speaker/listener method and repeating back what we hear from each other. We aren't supposed to try to talk about the issues in depth, only share.

He told me in his letter he would do the coaching for me because he feels he owes me a "full faith" effort since he was not honest about his feelings for so long. I agree that it really seems like he is phoning it in.

My husband does computer programming for a living, and he never found the spyware I installed .... Get a good one and you'll be fine.

Any advice for how to get my hands on his phone based on how closely he sleeps next to it? No joke he wakes up multiple times a night just to check the news. I can see now me trying to get the phone and he either a) waking up immediately or b) waking up within minutes because he wants to check it. He wakes up without fail almost every time I get out of bed for anything, let alone go to his side of the bed.

I should also mention I have access to all of our accounts and am the main account holder for all our credit cards so I can see everything that happens. I also am the sole possessor of the password to his credit monitoring service so I can see if he were to open a new account without my knowledge. So far there are no suspicious transactions or withdrawals.

Pro-marriage isn't saying much.

Lots of people, counselors, and coaches are pro-marriage but still recommend actions that lead to the end of marriages.

When Dr. Harley started counseling, nobody knew how to save marriages.

Follow the steps people are giving you here on this site. Find out all there is to know about your husband.

Our marriage coach has not said or done anything that conflicts with any of those principles. He believes romantic love can be sustained for a lifetime, that couples should not accept fighting as normal, and that you shouldn't just "accept" that sometimes marriage is bad. He can still go off the rails I'm sure, and I'm willing to drop him if he does.

His Needs, Her Needs is on our coach's shelf so I know he is familiar with it at least.

Just a thought....I bet he doesn't shower with it.

Think of places where he CAN'T take his phone and you'll find a good opportunity to borrow it for a few minutes.

He takes his phone into the bathroom when he showers and wraps it up in his clothes so it doesn't get foggy. He's done this as along as I have known him.

He also only showers for a few minutes.

I tried to set up teensafe but it looks like Apple now alerts people when the account is accessed, so there goes that plan.

Can you see the bill?

Could you accidentally spill coffe on the phone and offer to pick-up the new one?

Birdy, get a VAR (voice activated recorder). Or two.

If you have the funds, You can also buy a GPS and hide it on his car.

Yes, apple does send an email when using teensafe's GPS. GREAT option though for later.

Does he plug his phone into a computer for backup? If so, and if you can access that computer, there is decipher textmessage. That showed me texts, even deleted, going back years! You could buy the program, install, and then delete after you get the info.