We have ordered three books from Dr. Harley; His Needs Her Needs, Surviving an Affair, and Love Busters. We read Love Busters together and everything seemed to be going in the right direction. We read the first couple of chapters in His Needs Her Needs and when the last paragraph read to get started now she went the other way. Things have gone downhill since. I have read all three books. I first need to give you a little of our history. I am new so I am not sure what all the abbr. are so forgive me for not using them.
I had a high profile profession, which took me on the road 34 weeks a year. My wife and I used to do everything together and the first year that we moved up the ladder to one of the top levels we still did it together although we have three children. I used the telephone to talk to her while she would watch us on TV. We shared most everything of the week that way. I don't know what happened but we got separated emotionally somehow. She started to withhold sex and I missed all the signs. After reading I can't believe how I missed all those signs that were so obvious. My number one emotional need is admiration, which got filled harmlessly at one point by another woman. I left the woman in the city I met her and never thought about it again until she showed up at the next event and then the next, etc. I can't believe I was so stupid and uncaring. It didn't last long and my wife discovered it by a phone call from someone. I lied, and that added insult to injury. She did some snooping and I admitted it. That was around Feb 03 and we decided to reconcile right then. My wife sat me down recently and told me how unhappy she was and how she thought she could live with it but couldn't. After reading Love Busters I realize that I have engaged in most all of them on a continuous basis over the past year and half since its discovery. Not that the affair caused the love busters just that that is the way I since she knew me. I can't understand how I could have been like that and I feel that I have squandered a chance at real reconciliation. Since the time we talked recently I have followed the policy of radical honesty. The other woman contacted me a few times and I usually put her to voice mail. I have not spoken to her since march of 04 and told her I had nothing to say. She called me in July, which I did not notice. I hit the recall button and hung up once it connected. I knew it was her area code and I have no idea why I called it back. Just plain stupid. I admitted itemized the contacts and phone tags out to my wife when she asked. This was previous to our reading Love Busters. Since the first chapter of couple of Chapters in His Needs Her Needs she has stopped reading. She has read 49 pages in Surviving an Affair but that is it. She has gone in the other direction and asked for a divorce at one point. She says she does not have it in her to reconcile and that if she tried she would be doing it for everyone else (children,myself) and not her. Says she has nothing left, no love, no willingness to reconcile, her heart is lead she said. She no longer says I love you and seldom receives a hug. She says that she hears what I am saying but it floats around because she has been conditioned that she does not know what is going on in my head. That I am not going to continue to avoid love busters and filling her emotional needs and go back to engaging in all the ways of my past. I have quit my profession, and am taking up a new one. I have not engaged in a love buster in almost three months. I have been very concerned with her emotional needs and am genuine. She says she does not think about how to get our marriage back on track but how to get out from under it. Those words stick in my head and I feel like I may have lost her. In all my reading I did not find anything about the betrayed spouse withdrawing and becoming emotional divorced. Is there a way back from this? I keep one of Dr. Haley's quotes fresh in my head, "...let intelligence override the foolishness of your taker...". I reach for any kind of anything from her. I am depressed and beginning to think that I did what I did so I must pay the price and lose my family and it is what it is. I love my wife more than anything and I let my taker hurt her, and as I sit now I can't believe that I have done that. Not just the affair, but not meeting her needs when I have never thought otherwise in my head. I have always told others what a wonderful person she is and how beautiful she is and why I never communicated those to her I have no idea and now that I am voicing to her everything that I think I feel like it is to late. She said she had no desire to go to counseling and that divorce was enevitable and she didn't want to lose time to get on her with life. Says she feels she does not know whom she is, that she feel like a cave woman who has been dragged by the hair and has gotten up and kicked the cave man out of the cave. I respectfully persuaded her into going to counseling. A few days ago she said she was going to make the transition easier and that I had delusions of grandeur on reconciliation. That she wasn't thinking about how to get back on track that her train was in another country. I hear those words each day in my head along with many others. On the flip side whenever we discuss issues around divorce she always says "if" it goes that way. I am so confused, depressed, and have had several anxiety attacks. I get rushes down my arms, back, and legs like electricity. I counted 74 over a two-hour period while in bed one early morning. It goes on but you have the main points. What do I do? Is there any information on the betrayed spouse's state of mind and willingness? I am affraid of the counseling and getting a bad counselor. I do not want to be divorced and want to love my wife for the rest of her life and make her happy. Am I too late?
