Background information: I am 39. She is 34. We have been married 3 years, dated for 1 year prior to marriage. No children. After the second year of marriage we started trying to have children. She has been depressed for quite a while about not getting pregnant. Late in the second year I started playing a video game (Everquest) and started to neglect her - in that I was not helping around the house nor meeting her emotional needs. After our first year of marriage her mother died. W was only close to one family member, her mother. Now W is having an EA and PA with a female coworker. D-Day was around June of this year 2003. I quit playing the video game that day and started to do what ever I could to rebuild our marriage. Since I found MB site about two weeks ago, I have been working on trying to meet all her emotional needs, and reading everything about rebuilding our marriage I can get my hands on. But she will not take the emotional needs questionnaire, and I can not really get her to tell me what exactly her needs are - all she tells me is that she is not sure what they are. Anyway, I thought we were working on plan A but it appears that only I have been working on it. I found out this morning that she is still having an EA and PA with the other woman she works with.

What do I do now?

Plan A is not something "we" do. It is a strategy used by a BS to seperate the WS from the lover. There are some great links on the subject in the page in my signature line.

To find out what your W's most important emotional needs are if she won't tell you, you need to experiment. Do something, then observe her reaction. You need to be creative, because it is not only which need but how they are fulfilled. To take a mundane example: if she has a high need for RC, going for a walk together may be much more effective than going to the ballet. Or vice versa.

There are two other ways you may be able to find out. One is what you did together while dating that you stopped doing. The other is what she does with the OP.

Know that the experimental method may not work very well because while she is involved in an affiar, she does not WANT you to fulfill her EN's - she wants her affair partner to do that. Sometimes meeting EN's or trying to will just make the WS angry - in part because they have convinced themselves that the BS cannot meet there EN's, which is what they use to justify the affair. Showing them wrong upsets their world. This is a good thing, as long as you don't overdo it.

The flip side of this is that even though they do not want you to meet their EN's, they DO notice, even when it apears they do not. WS's who have left and then return confirm this every day. They saw the changes the BS was making, and even though they did not want to admit it to themselves, or it just made them mad at the time, it was a huge influence on their decision to return.

Thanks Johnh39.

I will read everthing you suggested and work on me, because as you said I can not control anyone, except myself.

Hey Brecovering,

So sorry to hear of your situation. My situation mirrors yours in more ways then you know.

I took up EQ several years ago and let me tell you it was the wrong thing to do! Instead of investing time into my M I wasted it away on that game. I thought it was ok to play when I was bored etc but of course it wasn't.

My WW also found out she could not have kids without Invitro. This was a HUGE problem for our M.

Of course there were other problems, but you should let your W know how you feel about having kids. My W did not know how I truly felt about not having kids and how it affected me.

The advice John has given is good. Read read and then read more! The book from MB "Surviving an Affair" is really good.

Poor yourself into her.
Flowers, Dates, Fun & Conversational Time Together.
Spend as much time as you can possibly be with her. Pick her up for lunch. Take her away for weekends. Get her away from this toxic woman every chance you get. She will want to be with her "as a friend", but don't buy the lie. Insist that you desire to be the one with her.

Remind her of who you are, by your actions.....The man she fell in love with so few years ago.
Draw her heart back to you and away from this other woman.

In typical lesbian relationships there is a domineering partner & the weaker partner. My guess is that your wifes missing her mother has been taken advantage by this OW. Your wife in very, very vulnerable right now.
Be thankful your wife has told you (so soon) about the affair. Get her away from that woman post haste!
Regardless of your financial needs, have W quit work & boogie back to you.
You......keep your mind of those games & gadgets & show that same energy & interest back into your wife.

Been there.......doing that....

I just prayed for you & your wife.
Now go to work on her. Bless her. Lay yourself aside & poor love all around her. Draw her back.

God bless you & your wife.

.e

Poor yourself into her.
Flowers, Dates, Fun & Conversational Time Together.
Spend as much time as you can possibly be with her. Pick her up for lunch. Take her away for weekends. Get her away from this toxic woman every chance you get. She will want to be with her "as a friend", but don't buy the lie. Insist that you desire to be the one with her.

Remind her of who you are, by your actions.....The man she fell in love with so few years ago.
Draw her heart back to you and away from this other woman.

In typical lesbian relationships there is a domineering partner & the weaker partner. My guess is that your wifes missing her mother has been taken advantage by this OW. Your wife in very, very vulnerable right now.
Be thankful your wife has told you (so soon) about the affair. Get her away from that woman post haste!
Regardless of your financial needs, have W quit work & boogie back to you.
You......keep your mind of those games & gadgets & show that same energy & interest back into your wife.

Been there.......doing that....

I just prayed for you & your wife.
Now go to work on her. Bless her. Lay yourself aside & poor love all around her. Draw her back.

God bless you & your wife.

.e

It will be very difficult to recover your marriage as long as there is any type of contact going on. The fact that they are physical lovers now will make it that much more difficult.
Ask her what she wants in her marriage and if she wants to stay married and work on getting a family. You both need marriage counseling. She needs to write a no contact letter and send it to the OW.
I believe this affair should be seen as any other type of affair. Would you be accepting if your wife was having sex with another man? No consequences to her actions equals no motivation to change. In short, your wife cannot continue to be having sex with someone else and living with you at the same time. You must not enable her affair. Again marriage counseling is a must and she needs to make a committment to the recovery of your marriage. If she continue to see this OW and have sex with her then you need to consider Plan B and ask her to leave. Again if she was continuing to have sex with another man would you be accepting of this and allow no consequences to her actions?
The longer you allow her to be a cakewoman and have sex with her lover while living with you the more difficult it will be in the long run.
I wish you luck.

She does not want to quit her job. She has said I am smothering her now. I am lost – what do I do now? All I seem to be doing is smothering her so she has said. And she does not like me being a warden and wanting to know where she is all the time. I don’t want to be a warden. I don’t want to smother her. I want to show her how much I love her and how I have changed. I have quit Everquest, but now all I do is show her affection and it is smothering her. We are in counseling but she only sees the counselor once a week; however, she made her next appointment for two weeks from now and that is a very long time. I know all this did not happen overnight, but I just feel like she is not working toward any goals. I do NOT want her to leave. I do NOT want a D. Now that I have found MB and I can identify what I was doing to withdraw from her account I know we can have a future together that it could be more wonderful than either of us imagined. But, I think her fear of looking for another job and her addiction to the other woman is clouding her judgment. What can I do to help her figure out what it is she wants with out her even wanting to work on anything as simple as filling out a questionnaire?

Again my friend you are enabling her to continue her affair. As long as there is contact you will not be able to recover. She refuses to quit her job and does not like telling you where she is. These are the consequences to her actions. If you do not consider plan B while she continues contact and continues the affair with the OW and refuses to be open about her whereabouts then it is almost impossible to succeed. You are allowing her to be a cakewoman and enabling her affair. What do you think her attitude would be if the roles had been reversed? If she continues to have this affair without consequences then where is the motivation for her to change? I am afraid that you are coming across to her as desperate and clinging which is not very attractive. She will not respect you until you respect yourself and show her that there are consequences to her actions unless you do not mind your wife sharing her mind and body with another woman while still being married to you. I wish you luck.

Bryanp,

That response really hit home.

The things you said are true.

My wife also reads this board, and after we both read what you posted, I think it helped open some doors. We have been talking about things ever since. I actually feel we might be moving toward plan A. She still has some reservations about having to find a new job, because she does not think she can handle the rejection that comes with interviewing over and over again and not getting called back. I am going to strongly suggest she fill out the EM questionnaire today and we are going to search for jobs via the internet, so we will see how today goes.

Thanks again everyone for helping, maybe one day I can give back something from my own experiences that might help someone.

B.

Brecovering, count me in as another man who's wife had a lesbian affair......I know how hard it can be......IT IS DIFFERENT....my thoughts go out to you.
My wife and I are still together at this time althought the road has been terribly painfull and seems never ending
I will post a little more frequently now knowing there is three of us dealing with the same sitch.
Hang in there.....you will survive...

Bradley

<small>[ September 04, 2003, 12:14 AM: Message edited by: bradleyj ]</small>

Bradley

Thanks, at least I am not alone. It did not seem like anyone else was going through my exact situation.

I am feeling some many things right now it is hard to list them all…

I finally got my wife to fill out the EM questionnaire last night. There seemed to be a definite pattern, I am smothering her! Well, I say to that “no duh”. I did not even know there was a problem before I found out she was having an A. And, now I guess I am so willing to work on “us” that I am smothering her.

Please tell me about your situation or as much as you can, like what to do and what not to do. And some other questions are: How long have you known? Is anything you are doing working, etc…….

B

<small>[ September 04, 2003, 12:15 AM: Message edited by: bradleyj ]</small>