After trying to do all the right things to bring the love back and feel like your banging your head against a brick wall most of the time. Do you ever feel like your starting to loose that feeling of love yourself?

Depresses H<P>I know how you feel and yes there are times when what you say are true. Then I look at how beautiful my W is and remember how great a feeling it was to be on the receiving end of her love not so long ago and it gives me all the more strength to carry on.<P>Colin

<p>[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: OffOnOnOff ]</p>

DH - absolutely! Sometimes I feel that I'd be better off to forget her and find someone that "deserves" me (I know that sounds arrogant, but it's a state of mind about this that I have to maintain for my self-esteem). But then I look at my son. This great kid is a product of our love and he deserves for me to fight with all I have to recreate a love between his parents. He brings me back to the proper, hard task at hand instead of taking the easy way out.<P>WAT

Yes, at times that's how I feel too. I don't think any of us realise how much time it will take to turn our S around, if at all. I have only recently realised that she's been hurting for much, much longer than I was aware of, and so it's bound to take a long time, both to convince her of my sincerity to want to change, and my ability to do so. At the moment I think she sees all my Plan A efforts as a short term knee jerk reaction to our situation, and, to a certain extent, resents them. But I'm going to carry on as best I can. My W has said she is going to make a decision after the holidays, as to whether she will leave or not. Until then it's Plan A as much as I can and try to show her I've changed.<P>Keep it up.

YES YES YES!!!<BR>Just last week I decided not to tell my WS everything I was doing. (He needs to know my where abouts and whom I'm with. He says that it makes him crazy when he doesn't know) For goodness sake...I'm the one who should be nuts over that not knowing stuff!<BR>So when I flipped a lid last week, I simply just did'nt have any contact for a few days and he was ready to take issue w/me about what I was up to. And I wouldn't budge. I still haven't! And although It sounds more like some kind of game....I'm just going to go my own way for a while. I need peace.

I feel that way most days! I question my sanity as to WHY I put up with my H. We've been married just shy of 1 year and the year has been hell.<P>I, too, think my H doesn't deserve my love. I'm saying that because I've given so much love and have treated him so good and would continue to if he'd only respect me. I don't expect the same back, but I do expect him to keep his vows.<P>I plan A'd from March until September then finally said to hell with it. I give a little now and I'm respectful towards him, but I don't think he'll ever get my heart again. I've given up and we'll see if he starts trying as hard as I did for the year, let HIM try to keep us together for a change.<P>I'm very bitter right now as you have probably guessed. I do plan on staying in my marriage unless he keeps screwing up so I'm looking forward to a great New Year!<P>Good luck to you and every other BS!

Hmmm, an excellent question, and some good responses already.<P>In my case, what I sense is that it's not as much that my love for my W (WS) is waning, but that a certain amount of resentment and bitterness is building up. After six months of a damn good Plan A (even Harley told me that my Plan A is flawless ), all I have to show for it is that we are still together and the A appears to be over. I know that's a lot more than a lot of others have achieved, so I guess it could be worse.<P>I also realize that Plan A is supposed to make <B>me</B> a better person, and I think I've tried to focus on that element. However, my mind is constantly tuned to worrying about "how am I doing?", "should I try something different?", "what will happen", etc. And this constant mental anguish is definitely taking its toll.<P>So, when I see the effort that I am putting in, and the apparent indifference of my W, I guess it is not surprizing that I am becoming resentful. It's almost as if she "deciding" if I'm good enough to settle for. I know I'm being cynical, but I can't help the feeling.<P>So again, I don't think my love is necessarily decreasing, but the resentment is building. I don't know what happens when one is full of love and full of resentment at the same time, but my guess is it's not a pretty sight...<P>AGG

Yes, sometimes I feel that I am loosing my love for my W. She had EA and has moved out. I've had problems for over a year. Counseled with Harley 4 times since October and been plan Aing since October although I did read books and realized some thing I had or hadn't been doing before I found this website.<P>Plan Aing has made me a better person, but my W see's it as a temporary thing and doesn't want to try. I do build bitterness and resentment at times, because of all the trying and getting no apparent response from her. My love for her seems to cycle up and down. But even the low part of the cycle has a lot of Love there!

Absolutely!!!!! Just had a discussion with wife two days ago and let her know that I can no longer be the sole keeper of our marriage without some reciprocal efforts. She told me how much she had done by not traveling so much. I explained that I felt not running away as she had in the past is not really something to be proud of but just expected of a mother and a wife. She asked me to keep on trying and I told her the bucket has almost run dry and she might be able to find another good man but she's letting one of the best slip through her fingers.<P>Later that evening, she when to the trouble put on a x-mas teddy she had bought after our discussion trying to make up. She has not done anything like that for years and I appreciated the though and effort, but just felt nothing but hurt and anger. I had never ever turned down sex from her, normally because she would make me beg for days. All the same, I just couldn’t even consider it a possibility. Truly scared the $hit out of me to react in that manner. Told her that she could no longer bribe me with sex and I wanted to share her soul as well as her body. I then left the house to hang out with some of my friends for the evening (something I never did until the last couple months).<P>God I wish I could make the past go away, but as long as she is still in contact with the OM and still sees her actions through the mist I only know one way to let go. If there is such a thing as x-mas magic, I could sure use a dose. <BR>

Oh yea, definitely in touch with that emotion. Even though things are going well and I have committed to plan A there are times when I wonder why and if this will ever really be healed. Just yesterday W told me she thinks less of OM each day, I told her that’s funny cause I think less of leaving her everyday??? <P>When I read this it sounds like a LB but it really wasn’t said in a LB way on either side. I just think it’s like the state of the union, it is what it is.<P>ihurt, good to see you back around.<BR>

Oh Yeah!!!!<P>And that's the reason I don't feel okay posting here anymore, so I mainly just lurk a few times a week. I think I was in some kind of crazed overdrive when I found this site, as I had just found so much in-my-face undeniable evidence of my H's affair. And so many confusing pieces of the puzzle of our marriage finally fit into place.<P>The counseling we got afterwards from 3 different sources caused me such massive confusion that I had to just stop it. I know that Plan A has a sound basis, and works for some marriages here, (I SEE that in some posts, so I know it's true), but it just made my H happier and more content in his double life, and made me feel like the mouse who couldn't roar, and I had to stop doing it way before the recommended time-line here.<P>I then tried the "180" that drb. recommends, and it definitely got my H's attention, but only for about a month.<P>The one single thing that sticks with me<BR>is what one counselor told me after my H had stormed out of a counseling session where we'd each had to discuss the things that that we wanted from our relationship. (This was a written assignment that we had to work on for an entire week.) My H wrote "That she continues to be a good co-parent to our children, and lets me go in peace." Nothing else.<P>I had a freaking manifesto about being respected and loved and committed to each other, and that he write a no-contact letter to his OW that I approved of, and tell me everything about his affair as I asked for details, and yadayadayadayada.....<P>The upshot? After H left screaming that I just never "listened" to whatever he was saying, the counselor made a Christmas analogy to me. That I'd prepared a lavish, beautiful meal, worked hard, set a gorgeous table, looked forward to the company, put out the (LATE!, he said...) invitation-------- and been plainly turned down------ so I should just stop trying to force my unwilling guest to come & eat & enjoy & apprecate everything I'd done---because he ISN'T EVEN HUNGRY!!!<P>This one analogy just keeps popping up over & over, and I think I'm finally "getting it."<P>I'm rapidly losing all caring about whether or not he's "in the fog," or "addicted," or "taken over by aliens," or "confused." <P>He just doesn't want what's here anymore. I haven't made an absolute decision yet, but I'm beginning to see that he's not the only one who gets to call the shots. I don't think I want what's here for me in this "marriage" anymore either. <P>We had a decent 22-year run, but I think I need to fold my cards and get out of the game. <P><BR>

Definitely. I wonder if the long road ahead, with no guarantee of success, is worth the fight. I wonder if I should just find someone that believes in being committed to a marriage, and wants to work together to make a wonderful life for each other. But then I look at my two beautiful children, and similar to WAT's statement, I think that they would like nothing better than for me to do everything I can to save our marriage, and recreate the love their mother and I used to share together. I have to give it everything I've got for my children, because among other things, at their ages, they deserve to be with Mom and Dad. I also remember the times I shared with my wife during better days, and believe that we can have that back. And if I feel like I'm losing the battle, my MB friends never let me down, and give me a kick.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their responces. After thinking about it for awhile and seeing all the support I brought home Roses for my W. I was shocked to see the excitement in her. That night we made love (real love). We didn't just go through the motions. It was the most amazing thing that I've felt in a long time. Thanks for all the support.