I have questions, but I wanted to start with an introduction of myself, and our story.

Married to Erastis (forum name) for 15+ years. Three kids that are elementary aged. Erastis is stable and financially successful, and has been our entire marriage. We live in the same small hometown we were both born in.

We married when he was 31 and I was 23, only 6 months after we met. We both had strong Christian roots, but I had lived a rebellious life in college, while he had never dated. His first kiss was with me. I had been sexually active since 16 with almost a dozen boyfriends. He had a vision of marriage as one of complete transparency, intimacy, and oneness. I wanted to be a wife and mother with someone safe who would be a good provider, but my past dating experience taught me that men didn't like to be bothered with emotional, clingy women. I didn't expect much closeness out of marriage, and I believed that opposite sex friends and even mild flirting were perfectly harmless.

Erastis was fearful of my openness with other men and bewildered by my distance. He felt very rejected by me. His solution was control, judgements, and demands. I complied as best I could, very much operating out of my giver. We both believed women were to submit unquestioningly to their husband. My best efforts still fell short.

Things became really bad about 10 years into our marriage. In an effort to create intimacy and SF, he began to pressure me into watching porn, wearing revealing clothes, and flirting with other men. He found a "hot wives" site where people interested in threesomes and swapping met. I felt inadequate, rejected and confused. I lost the baby weight I'd gained and slowly began to give into pressure to participate. In a conversation that now haunts us both, he told me, "Don't worry about the consequences. I'll be responsible for that."

Then he introduced me to "J", a guy from the hot wives site. We clicked. With Erastis's supervision and encouragement, J and I chatted for hours at the time, swapped photos and videos. Six months later, it escalated to the three of us having video sex. That night Erastis realized this was not creating the excitement and intimacy he wanted, and he told me to never contact J again.

By this time, I was very much over the romantic love threshold with J, while my love bank with Erastis was nearing 0. After three days of depression, I opened a secret email account with the sole intent of only saying good bye. It was the beginning of my secret second life.

Six months later the affair died a natural death. I was addicted to the thrill of affirmation, and sought out other online boyfriends. For the next 18 months I lived a double life. I became highly involved in fitness and sports. I felt trapped and controlled in marriage, and I used the online fantasy life and fitness to cope. I went as far as meeting two of the men on two different occasions, but the only physical contact was a pat on the rear and a kiss on the forehead.

In the meantime, Erastis was as miserable as I was, but sought God instead of escape. I could see him becoming the man I'd dreamed of, but I now I felt trapped in my deception. I believed he would never forgive me if he knew.

In March of 2013, through a freak turn of events which we both believe was the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Erastis discovered my online affairs. It took three days of him digging before he uncovered the depth of my second life. I was terrified and relieved at the same time. He gave me an clear choice very calmly - if I wanted out of the marriage, he wouldn't fight me. I decided to stay.

Even though we had never heard of MB, he lead me through many of the steps instinctively. We confessed to our families, pastor, and a marriage counselor. I dropped all social accounts and all social fitness activities. We set up many extraordinary precautions but I struggled with those same fearful feelings of control that had plagued our marriage from the beginning, and we both stayed frustrated with how to set boundaries, and how to love each other.

Now, 3 years later, we have finally found MB. We have signed up for the online coaching program and have been through the weekend marriage seminar (DVD) and two weeks of lessons. There are so many tools that we needed to get through recovery - that we could have used to avoid the tragedy in the first place. The love bank, emotional needs, love busters, the POJO (!!)... it breaks my heart to see the destruction we've caused. For the first time, though, I am beginning to understand what Erastis has been seeking from the beginning of our marriage. Unity, oneness, openness and honesty. Without control or fear. Without demands and judgement.

I have caused so much pain to Erastis. I am grateful that he never gave up on me, on our marriage. That he has continually sought to find answers on having a great marriage. I'm grateful for Marriage Builders and hopeful future we have ahead of us, and for the opportunity to teach our children so that they will not go into marriage without understanding these principles.

Welcome to MB. I'm pleased to read that you are doing the online programme. The direct access that you have to Dr Harley will be invaluable.

I agree that you caused great pain to Erastis, but wouldn't you say that, when he pimped you out to other men, and forced you to engage in swinging, that he hurt you terribly, too?

How is your marriage now?

Hurt? Yes. As I said in my post, I felt inadequate, rejected and confused.

He did not force me to do anything, though. The control I felt like he had was in my head. Sometime after D-Day, I desperately tried to find answers for my behavior. I had participated in and committed acts I never believed were possible for me. One of the first books that gave me some hope was "Boundaries in Marriage" by Henry Cloud. I did not have good boundaries. Instead, I used independent behavior and dishonesty. I am responsible for my own actions.

I also understand his motives. Just like the secret life I lived, there were reasons but not excuses.

We are both on board with the MB program. Our marriage has (very) slowly grown better over the past 3 years, but now I feel like we are building our relationship with power tools instead of manual ones.

But you said:

Azurite and Erastis: Do not post on the same thread. Your posts have been separated into two threads.

Azurite, have you checked to make sure that Erastis isn't hiding something, too?

Yes, I have checked and occasionally still do. He dropped all social accounts at the same time I did, and has not reopened any. We have full access to accounts (email and financial), passwords, each other's phone (including the ability to track each other). He has exercised extraordinary precautions since the beginning of our marriage with regard to limiting his contact with other women. In the 15 years we've been married, I would estimate that we've had less than a dozen nights apart.

azurite, this must seem like a very odd "welcome" to you. You come here to join the public forum and you are taken to task from your first post onwards. What on earth is going on?

It's just that, for me, that very first post sounded so submissive. iIt sounded as if you had been coaxed, or even coached, into taking the blame for the breakdown of your marriage. And yet your explanation was so contradictory.

in the beginning there was you, much younger than your husband, and thus, in theory at least, less authoritative in the marriage. Indeed, you say you were subjected to "control, judgements, and demands" and that you did your best to comply, because you believed in submission. You had a past that should have been left in the past, and you had poor boundaries around men, but instead of you both realising that this needed to stop, somehow this was was used to justify your being pressured into "watching porn, wearing revealing clothes, and flirting with other men." - and swinging. It sounds as if you were very heavily controlled in that area of your marriage. You might have made reluctant agreements to do what you did, in order to please your husband, but reluctant agreements are not agreements at all. You were coerced into doing what you did.

You explain your husband's treatment of you as "an effort to create intimacy" - but that just does not make sense. Intimacy between two people cannot be created by bring third and fourth people into the bedroom. Whatever your husband was trying to do, it wasn't to create intimacy between the two of you.

You've taken the entire blame for things you were coerced and pressurised into doing under the guise of Biblical submission. I don't know what process you have undergone in order to adopt the identity you seem to have now, but it isn't healthy for you to see your marital failures as yours alone.

You alone are responsible for your affairs, and for your secret second life. You alone are responsible for seeking out men on the Internet. However, you were coerced into porn and swinging by your husband, whom you obeyed because you thought it your duty to submit.

I hope that from now on, you'll create a marriage of equals, using Marriage Builders. If you have needs that you would like to be met, express those needs. If you have a complaint about your husband's love busters, express that complaint, respectfully. Protect your marriage against affairs, and against each other's cruelty, neglect or abuse, and spend several hours per week meeting each other's intimate needs.

That's what you need to do going forward. If you continue to feel controlled, as you did after D Day, that is a sign that something is still wrong.

I'm sorry, but in the light of what you've just told us about swinging, that just does not make sense.

It wasn't the welcome I expected for sure. Thank you for acknowledging that.


I believe what you are hearing is the results of 3 years of work. Initially I was extremely defensive and bitter and did my best to shift the blame to Erastis. There was a part of me that felt like he deserved what I had done - he was reaping what he had sown. There was another part of me that was desperate to justify and excuse my behavior. I experience the "fog" for at least 6 months after D-Day, but didn't know what to call it. I felt like many of Erastis's requests for accountability were ridiculous, over the top paranoia, and just another form of him trying to control me.

It has taken a good part of the past 3 years to heal from that bitterness. Even though posting our story has poked at some old wounds, I honestly do not feel bitter towards him. He has gone through the steps of just compensation for his role in the affairs. He has completely recognized the pain he cause, stopped all demands and judgements in sex, and actively sought ways to protect and heal our marriage.



You are correct on this. (Thank you for changing the language from forced to coerced. I feel that is more accurate.) Neither of us had ever considered POJA. While Erastas has diligently worked these past 3 years to love me sacrificially and consider me in decisions he made, we did not have a clear plan on how negotiate. We are very new to this concept, and are still learning how to include this in all decisions. We both love it. While I am healed of the bitterness of his sexual coercion, I have not recovered from the fear being controlled and I filter many of our discussions through this fear. POJA addresses this fear as well as the LB of independent behavior and dishonesty that I used to avoid being controlled.


SF builds intimacy for him. I was always willing, but rarely passionate. He thought maybe the problem was that he was just not enough for me, and he tried to create passionate arousal in me in a very misguided way. You mentioned swinging several times. I never said that, and it was not a part of our lives. He was never interested in being with other women. His goal was to use any means possible to excite me and get the intimacy through SF he wanted. It did actually create passion in me. Even during the secret online affairs, I was often passionate during sex with him because I was imagining someone else. It destroyed intimacy, though, and he understands how foolish that path was.


Thank you for this advice. I am still learning to be honest about what I feel instead of just saying the right things. I still operate out of either my taker or my giver and need work on negotiation. We are spending close to 20 hours together for UA, and following Harley's program very closely to learning to meet each other's needs and not hurt each other.

Have I misunderstood?

What is this, if not swinging?

"In an effort to create intimacy and SF, he began to pressure me into watching porn, wearing revealing clothes, and flirting with other men. He found a "hot wives" site where people interested in threesomes and swapping met. I felt inadequate, rejected and confused. I lost the baby weight I'd gained and slowly began to give into pressure to participate. In a conversation that now haunts us both, he told me, "Don't worry about the consequences. I'll be responsible for that."

Then he introduced me to "J", a guy from the hot wives site. We clicked. With Erastis's supervision and encouragement, J and I chatted for hours at the time, swapped photos and videos. Six months later, it escalated to the three of us having video sex. That night Erastis realized this was not creating the excitement and intimacy he wanted, and he told me to never contact J again."

And this? Isn't it swinging?

I think you and your husband would both do well if you stopped trying to get people to use the English language the way you want it used, and instead focus on what is being said.

I don't think you actually asked any questions. Perhaps we could move on to those now.

So are you needing help with POJA?

FYI This forum is action oreinted. Unlike most boards, we discourage blogging; it is a time-waster.( If you follow MB , you are usually too busy to blog.)This is partly why you are getting these sort of responses- we are trying to figure out what you want to fix. Then we can advise you properly according to MB. (We also find debating semantics annoying--time wasted. )

Are you getting 15 hours of UA? Practicing EPs? Trouble avoiding Lovebusters?