My first marriage, her 2nd (lasted only 6 months / knocked up story), we got together (her kid was 3) and had 2 more kids. Together for 7 years, married for 5.

We had a bad pattern of creating big events to mask our constant love busting from the start - vacations, moving around, engagement, wedding, popping out kids - it was one event after another. After kid 2, things slowed down, life got repetitive, we fought a lot, I was being too demanding (like sex), and she was struggling with transitioning to stay at home mom.

Apparently she says the last couple years she has been going through the motions of acting loving, but she wasn't actually into it. I'm not sure how much of that is true given some of the pictures, love letters, and social media posts that I've seen. But we have to accept it for what it is and move on.

Fast forward to year 5 of marriage, a couple new harsh fights acted as the pivotal moment for my wife to give the "I love you but not in love with you" phrase.

May - I broke all the divorce busting best practices such as avoiding begging, big talks, blaming, etc... But at the same time had a spiritual turn around. She also agreed to start counseling, both individual and couples.

June - 2 steps forward 1 step back as I tried on the new techniques I learned about my own self-help and being respectful of the marriage. It was a tough month, but we moved past anger and resentment.

July - Early July we have a relapse when I threaten divorce, but immediately following we start working on the marriage and start dating again.

August - We had several good dates, fun trips, and proof of self improvement. She has done a 180 on her anxiety issues and being hyper-critical of me. I have been loving unconditionally day in and day out without any demand of reciprocity.

So after all this she tells the counselor I'm still in the friend zone and she is frustrated that she doesn't have feelings even after I shower her with love day after day.

A couple months ago she said she was numb and couldn't imagine being with anyone else. Now she says that she feels like she is wasting her time. I'm actually seeing a positive in that horrific statement in that maybe now she will put axe to the grind stone instead of being complacent.

I got her to agree to do the love dare. If you don't know what that is look it up! I feel like its my last chance.

I'm praying for two possible outcomes:
1. We reconcile
2. She walks out. The Lord says if an unbeliever leaves, then let them go. Besides that, physical abuse, and adultery there are no other biblical guidelines for divorce.

By the way, there is no affair going on, just wanted to rule that out for you. I'd rather not get into explaining how I know that.

Any fresh perspectives?

Hi marriedonce, welcome to Marriage Builders. The above statement is the huge red flag in your post and explains why none of your efforts are working. The comment "I love you, but am not in love with you" means she has a new point of comparison. The reason you can't fill her lovebank is because it is closed to you. The reason it is closed is because it is open to someone else. That is what you need to find out. Don't ASK her, but quietly do some snooping and find out who it is and what she is doing.

Secondly, we don't advocate "divorce busting" or "love dare" practices because they are very ineffective. For example, the "180" is a basically a protocol of detachment, when detachment is the main problem. It makes the problem worse especiallly when you are competing with another man. Believe me, he is not being DISTANT.

We can help you save your marriage if you are here to follow the MB program, but not if you are using divorce busting practices.

Marriage Builders is completely different from other marriage programs in that it has a step by step plan to save marriages that, when followed, results in romantic love while affair proofing the marriage. We also have a plan to save marriages from infidelity. It is a 2 step plan: kill the affair, affair proof the marriage and then create romantic love in the marriage. People who are in love don't get divorced, after all.

Welcome to MB.

I don't believe that there is no affair going on. And why wouldn't you explain how you know that?

Yuck here we go with the affair stuff again... I got this from another forum and had to walk away from it because it made me super paranoid and caused our marriage to take a huge step backwards when I wigged out and went crazy. So I guess let's dive into that so we can get it out of the way. She has not said ILUBNILWY for a long time now, I believe we have shifted to a point where we both honestly recognized that we lost our connection along the way and we're both frustrated it isn't coming back as fast. How can a married couple compete with the memory of new love - you can't - because new love is like a drug. But that shouldn't be the comparison.

So here is how I debunked the affair myth -

April / May timeframe she started distancing and spending a lot of time with her son's baseball team. I was blind to the warning signs that we were drifting apart really bad this time and we were fighting and just not getting along. She got close with some of the moms and the coach, and then that turned into a couple drinks in the bleachers, and then turned into a couple after parties at a restaurant with more drinks. There was probably only 3 occasions of that.

My synopsis of this is that she was inadvertently emotionally cheating on me by befriending the coach and getting super deep with these moms. I had a thought to check the phone records and found that she was spending significant amounts of time on the phone with the coach (a man). She was latched onto a new addiction. It is always something with her - planning a vacation, re-decorating the house, getting a new wardrobe. She goes from one hyper-focused thing to the next. In this case, she had an idea that she was going to start her own team, and she was on conference calls with this guy and another mom for hours on end talking about baseball this and baseball that.

Well I flipped my lid and accused her of cheating. I also brought it up to her family (big love buster). I even had her sister independently do some digging and she is certain there was no affair. My wife was super mad that I wouldn't just come to her directly and discuss my concerns. Either way I told the guy to never talk to her again, and they haven't. Her son is on a new team now, she isn't friends with the other people anymore. I do believe though that for this short duration she was having a level of excitement that is hard to compete with when you're in the day-to-day of toddlers, work, and marriage. This was a short-term fantasy that caused her to say that. When someone is truly committed to a marriage, they understand there are ups and downs and you don't let things like this distract or persuade you away from the marriage.

I work from home a lot and when she leaves the house it isn't for long, always had the kids with her, and receipts and credit card records to match. Just to be absolutely certain I casually monitored her phone and internet traffic. There is nothing there. There isn't even a minute in the day for her to be off doing something now that she started a new job.

So can we move onto something constructive now?

Yes. Let's start with your denial. We see this quite often so it is no surprise. Her affair has only gone further underground because you confronted her without evidence. The first step is to quietly start sleuthing and get the evidence. You have not done that. We would not advise that you accuse or "ask" but quietly snoop to find out what is going on. Come back and we can help you with next steps.

The reason you got this from "another forum" is because objective outsiders can see all the red flags even though you can't. We understand you don't WANT to believe such a thing, but this is a situation where the truth has to come out in order to save your marriage.


Actually not. When a married couple is in love, nothing can compete with that. But, it is obvious she is in love with someone else, not SOMETHING ELSE, but someone else.

The most constructive advice we can give you is to start snooping and find out the FACTS. There is nothing we can tell you to do that will be helpful if that is not done first. The advice we give someone in an affair is completely different from those who are not.

I see you embracing philosophies that are embraced by conflict avoiders. None of these programs, philosophies will resolve your marriage problems:

1. divorce busters [the ostrich approach]
2. Love Dare [unconditional love which is bad for marriages]
3. marriage counseling [complete distraction by focusing on grievances and "communication" - marriage counselors have no earthly idea how to save marriages]
4. individual counseling [another useless distraction that takes time away from resolving marriage issues]

I do find it interesting that when objective observers point out the most likely basis for your marriage problem, you get angry and reject it. You don't want to hear the most obvious and glaring source of your problem because you aren't really looking for solutions, you are looking for validation for your conflict avoidance.

Am I right?

Excellent, so 2, 3, and 4 won't work. I came here for a fresh perspective, and it sounds like you might have one. I do think I want to fire the marriage counselor, she is not helpful at all.

As I pointed out, I have already done the snooping. There is no affair.

So what's next? How should I proceed in a sexless marriage with no affair? Improving myself, being patient, increasing my confidence, and avoiding love busters have had a really positive effect.

Now I want to take it to the next level!

Start by snooping BETTER because the affair has gone underground. Do that and then come back. We can help you with next steps..

If I had too much time on my hands, I would search all topics that started with the statement "there is no affair", despite the ILYBNILWY. I bet within the hour I could give you a list of 50 topics, every single one of them there was an active affair after all.

Just search the subforum "surviving an affair" and find out for yourself.

Like I said, I did that.

The EA was confronted in May, turned out to not be an EA at least in the romantic sense. She was just avoiding dealing with this directly.

After that blew over I snooped and snooped and snooped. No Affair.

What's next? Purchase these XYZ courses for $47? Already did that. Many times. I've read like 6 self-help books and they all say the same thing: self-improve and wait. If you wait and wait and your wife leaves, well then you're a better man for the next marriage.

For giggles I thought I would see if there were any other realistic strategies that maybe I haven't tried.

You need to put spyware on all her devices and put a VAR where she would have her conversations and GPS on her vehicle.

Exactly what snooping steps are you taking now?

Confronted, not terminated. I bet my car on it.

marriedonce, listen to the vets here, they've seen this play out thousands of times, they know what they're talking about. You may have snooped before, and you think it's enough to rule it out. You shouldn't be so confident. Once you tipped your hand to your wife, she probably went deep underground. Waywards are also good at temporarily cooling off the affair, to get you to become complacent in your snooping. After a few months of you not finding anything with your current snooping methods, you assume it's over, and they can resume the affair more cautiously and surreptitiously.

The Operation Investigate forum has a lot of effecting snooping suggestions, such as the ones the vets already gave you. You need to rule out an affair, with more effective snooping methods than you have so far. There are a lot of red flags here, not only the ILYBINILWY statement she made.

Do you know how many betrayed spouses came here, and were 110% convinced that their spouse was not in an affair? Thousands, and they come back later and say "I'm sorry I didn't listen, you were right all along." Some of our best veteran posters were initially convinced their own spouse wasn't in an affair, and learned the hard way. The longer an affair stays entrenched, the worse your chances to recover the marriage. If you want to save your marriage, then don't let that happen to you.

Stop deflecting and denying and avoiding conflict. If you snoop using the methods recommended here, and there turns out to be NO affair, you'll be that much more relieved. But you won't know until you do. Do it.

Its a moot point about the affair guys, seriously let's move on.

The ball is in her court if she wants to initiate a divorce. We haven't set a specific deadline for love to return, but in a roundabout way I think we both believe it will be no later than the end of this calendar year. That would put us at 6 months which is a reasonable amount of time for a marriage that has strayed.

Now if it turns out she is having an affair - I don't care! I want nothing to do with her if she is having one. So instead, why don't we just move forward as if she ISN'T having one, because its like this:

If she is having an affair, I would have wasted my time anyhow. I'm not worried about wasting time.
Is she isn't having an affair, and a change in my strategy works, then we win.
If a change in strategy doesn't work, then it doesn't matter if there was an affair or not, it is still the same outcome.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Spying is a sunk cost.

Let me give you one more perspective that may sway your opinion as to why this isn't an "acute" issue, like an affair.

It is possible she never loved me in the first place. I swooped in and saved her from a rough life as a single mom. All the wild dating after she had been holed up in an apartment really rocked her world. We flew into marriage on a high.

After having 2 kids in rapid succession she said the feeling started to fade, but she was fake to me and the family for 3 years. She was just going through the motions to make everyone else happy.

Now that she is older and the dust has settled on baby-mania, she is having second thoughts about giving so much. This coupled with me being demanding and selfish was like putting kerosene on the fire.

So its not like she just one day fell for someone else, this has been a nagging issue all long. Maybe she has mental health issues. Maybe she is a huge liar. Maybe she is the female version of a "Nice Guy". Nice Guys want to make everyone else happy and then resent everything inside.

None of that matters because we got married in the eyes of God and we have to follow through with a commitment. Love is action, it can be manufactured.

This isn't the first time she has made poor life decisions. Throughout her life she has done stupid things like dropping out of school, randomly moving to other cities, and getting involved with party drugs. Nonetheless we have to love and support her.

Because any of the advice we would give you would be useless if she is having an affair. [which she is] The advice we give for an affair versus a standard marriage problem is completely different. So you are asking us to give you advice without a correct diagnosis.


Nothing we tell you to do will cause her to fall in love if she is having an affair or having any contact whatsoever with this man because her love bank is CLOSED TO YOU. You don't seem to understand this. All of your efforts will fail if there is any contact. This is why it is critical to snoop and kill the affair.

And as you said, you want nothing to do with her if she is having an affair, so wouldn't it make sense to do some super sleuthing so you can make INFORMED DECISIONS about your life?

Don't waste your time and ours by mistreating an undiagnosed problem. FIRST, diagnose the problem.

This post only reinforces to me that you are the LEAST objective person on this thread and have no experience on these matters. [but you think you do] No one can help you if you won't put aside your own inexperience and keep an open mind.


You don't have any idea what you are talking about. Romantic love is not an "action," it is a feeling. And it is a feeling that can be produced if you follow these steps. Couples who are in love don't get divorced; people don't stay married because they feel they have to follow through on a commitment. They do stay married if they are in love.

What you are doing is cherry picking advice from various sources, applying some folk "wisdom," making yourself the judge of the effectiveness of those plans. The problem with this strategy is that you have no experience and don�t know what you are doing. You have never saved a marriage, after all. My suggestion is to put aside your own failed ideas and try a plan that comes from someone with experience and expertise saving marriages. There are no guarantees, but your self devised little plan is guaranteed to fail.

Yes! Did you know Dr. Harley actually produced his plans by doing a lot of painstaking research, working with couples, finding out what happily married couples did and learning how to motivate unhappy couples to start doing what makes marriages happy? And then he followed up for years and years with couples to make sure they were still happy down the road - most of the other marriage counselors in those days were producing people who were happy for a short time and then got divorced afterward. Even today most "counselors" are still passing around junk ideas that have never been proved to work.

Dr. Harley's marriage builders program has been proven to work - no couple that has followed it has ever gotten divorced or ends up unhappy (although plenty of couples have tried to cherry pick part of marriage builders and throw out what they don't like and then blamed their failure on marriage builders!)