I have been married for 7 years and I have had an affair with a man that I met one night and had an instant connection with. I cannot, hard as I try, get the other man out of my head. My husband knows of the affair and we have been counseling for 5 weeks, but I cannot shake it. We had an instant connection and I felt feelings for him like I have never had for anyone. My husband and I have never had anything in common and have lived separate lives since the day we got married. What do I do? I feel like my in my heart the relationship between my husband and I is not right and that we arent meant to be together and that the OM came into my life for a reason. My husband and I have 2 children together.

Well, the OM did come into your life for a reason. To get some free nookie. That is all. Any man who does a married woman has utterly disrespected and degraded her. I am sorry you were degraded so shamefully.

Your marriage with your husband can be right if you end all contact with the OM and use this program to create a romantic, passionate marriage.

Is the OM married? If so, does his wife know you were shagging her husband? Who all knows about your affair? Do your kids what you have done?

Did you end ALL CONTACT with this loser?

You can make your marriage work. If you have nothing in common find things that you both enjoy (the recreational inventory). Even though things aren't going well for me and my marriage. I have found activities that we both do together that we both enjoy.

About the separate lives things, the MB program will solve that.

Make sure you end contact with the other man and figure out why it happened. Help your husband heal from the wound that us WS's inflict on our unsuspecting, wonderful spouse.

We have a special name for this story you just told. Many men and women tell the same story for some time until they, too, learn the special name.

That name is bull crap.

Start your reading here;

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5024_qa.html

And continue here;

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5059_qa.html


The only thing that was "special" about the disgusting behavior which you exhibited with a man that was not your husband, is that you gave this man more energy than you gave your marriage.

And don't fool yourself, it was disgusting because YOU HAVE A HUSBAND.

You got married for a reason, strugglingaz. You didn't just bump into your husband in a grocery store and stop at a church on the way out to the parking lot. Don't rewrite history.

In short, what you do is, you stop living separate lives. You start spending significant time together giving one another your undivided attention. (You can read about "undivided attention" on this site -- do a search for the phrase.) It's huge for a marriage, and its huge for recovering a marriage from an affair. As I can tell you from personal experience.

Please know that you are going to get beat up on this site. Try to ignore the snide remarks until you've read up enough to see some of the wisdom behind some of it all.

No one here is going to give you an easy "out" by telling you it's OK to ditch your marriage. If that's what you're seeking, that's not what MarriageBuilders is about.

What it's about is learning to be in love, or back in love, with your spouse, in a way that is better than you had before the affair. If you're up for that, then stick around & ask questions & have a thick skin, but I'm here to tell you that it can work out, IF you're willing to put in the effort.

HERE




HERE

Don't whine, don't squirm... READ.

Not as long as you keep in touch with the OM.

It's the same way an alcoholic can't get thoughts of drink out of his/her head as long as he/she sits in a tavern.

I tried to break off my affair while it was still only an emotional affair, but I tried to do so while remaining in regular contact with the other woman. And that wasn't "trying" hard enough. Of course it failed -- NOT because OW was so great (she actually couldn't hold a candle to my wife in just about any area), but because I had been allowing OW to meet some of my most important emoional needs, and therefore, I was basically an addict, a alcoholic.

Have you read about emotional needs? Take a look at the yellow box on the right-hand side of this webpage.

Love isn't about chemistry. Love is about choices. You've been making bad ones. But using dodges like "it's chemistry" or "connection" is evading your responsibility for your choices. It's not that you "can't" shake it. You are choosing not to shake it.

One thing that may help: Quit making it all about you. What about your husband's feelings? How must he feel? Whenever you think how sweet & nice OM makes you feel, you might try imagining what a kick in the stomach that is to the man you chose to marry.

I had an affair, strugglingaz. Yeah, I thought I was "in love." But I came to see eventually it wasn't that at all. Rather, it was actually me & OW being very, very selfish, and choosing to indulge that selfishness with very little consideration for our spouses' feelings.

But after I came clean & started trying to place my wife's feelings at least on par with my own, we were able to learn & start meeting each other's emotional needs better than we'd ever been able to do before in over 16 years of marriage.

OW tried to break up my family. She wanted me to run off with her. Had I done that, I would've ruined my life. She was a walking ball of issues. I suspect that your OM -- and any man who would act as though he has any kind of right to intrude on another's marriage -- has plenty of issues of his own. You think you can build a good relationship on top of that kind of character defect? Or is it your fantasy that after you & he run off to fantasy land and you ditch your husband & kids, that your OM will magically repair that character & be faithful to you, even while you repair your own character?

Sounds to me like you'd be better off making an honest effort to fix your marriage.

Have you read the book "Surviving An Affair"? It may have saved my marriage. I suggest you look into it while you still have a chance to become again someone you can be proud of.

....had an instant connection with. I cannot get the other man out of my head. I cannot shake it. We had an instant connection and I felt feelings for him like I have never had for anyone. I feel like my in my heart the relationship between my husband and I is not right and that we aren't meant to be together and that the OM came into my life for a reason.

Okay, then, after reading your post several times, I am still confused about why you spent any time typing it - you didn't actually lay it out. I figure you did so in order either to

• request assistance from the affair-attack-dogs on this site to end it, and try to repair your marriage
• brag about it, harvest "drama" from it, but not end it

If it's the second, you should probably bail out of here immediately. The folks here can smell out a phony in about three postings - and then it gets UGLY.

If it's the first, give us proof of your sincerity. Write a letter, detailing EVERYTHING in plain language(not "inappropriate relationship", but "extramarital affair", etc), and make clear that your goal is to NEVER do this again, asking for help by the reader to keep you on the righteous path, make copies, and distribute them to your parents, siblings, girlfriends, co-workers, and HIS wife, family, and friends.

There, that would take about, oh, a day. Then you can work on trying to heal your husband's wounds, the ones YOU, supposedly his partner-for-life, inflicted.

Get back to us Monday, and tell us how it went.

Here�s what�s in your future if you don�t end contact with the OM and proceed down this course:

Your children will be subjected to massive selfishness on your part. Don�t kid yourself. Adultery is a betrayal of a family, not of a spouse. You will have effectively cheated on your kids as well. Don�t tell yourself the standard lie, �My kids will want me to be happy, therefore they will be happy if I�m happy.�

Not true. My wife left me when my daughter was 3 and my sons were one. They have openly expressed, even in front of my current wife, whom they love, that they would rather have all of us together.

You will not be friends with your ex. Dispel this Hollywood myth out of your head. It�s not going to happen and if it does happen, it will be after many, many, many years.

How do you get rid of these feelings? You end all contact with the OM for life.

This will put you in withdrawal and over time you�ll see the insanity of what you�re doing.

You can�t have an instant contact with someone based on one night. What you have right now is not love. It�s flat out lust. You don�t know this man. You have an impression of him, but that�s it. It isn�t the truth.

So it�s time to grow up, act like a mom, and put your kids first. YOU will be the cause of the destruction of their family, and it is YOU that they will blame once they grow up and have the maturity to know the truth. It will all be the result of your selfish actions.

AND

I would advise your H, if he was on this forum, to divorce you on the grounds of adultery and seek sole physical and legal custody of your kids and fight you tooth and nail for custody, child support, and marital assets.

Just so you know, 95% of affairs never make it to marriage. Of those that do, 70% end up divorced in the first 5 years.

They are horrible, horrible relationships, because the traits that made the affair possible, deceit, dishonesty and thoughtlessness destroy the "affairage." We have several that show up here every year because one of the partners is having an affair. When you marry a cheater, they tend to cheat. When you marry someone who has no respect for marriage, they have no respect for marriage.

Dr Harley speaks here about the disaster of "affairages" here. Your affair is doomed.

I would love to cut and paste what you wrote here and hand it to my WW to read.

She needs to hear this.

Thanks.

"Instant connection," huh???

I thought my POSOM - an old HS boyfriend - was my "soulmate." That we were "connected." Puh-leeze. He was after one thing - the same thing your OM was after, coincidentally - to get laid.

You want to know what my life is like now? My H left me. I spend weekends alone in a huge empty house. Our daughters don't get to see their daddy every day. I miss curling up against my H every night. I miss his cooking. I miss his smile. My H sometimes can't even stand to look at me because of what I did. And I live with the knowledge that POSOM was nothing compared to my H, yet I threw it all away. For nothing.

And I have to look at myself in the mirror every morning.

Hon, your BH has given you a gift - he knows about the A (I hope he has the whole truth) and he is staying with you, going to counseling. The best thing that can happen to you is to spend a lifetime passionately in love with the father of your children. Not chuck it all b/c of some sleazeball you had an ONS with.

Thank you for all of the insight. I am not saying that the OM and I have any sort of future together because chances are nothing would ever develop from that. Its not a matter of leaving my husband for him, its just a matter that I think I would be happier not married. I have yet to see, in the 30 years of my life, a marriage that I would ever want to model myself after, therefore I think it is a joke. I would have no desire to ever be married again. I will give counseling a try, but I am not completely sold on the idea that it will make me love my husband.

Give this plan a try. Please. Even after just a few short weeks, it's working for me. But you HAVE to follow the plan.

Also, I have a question. I'm not saying that my husband never met my emotional needs. He probably did, he just wasn't around much. OM didn't meet my emotional needs either as we have only seen each other twice in the last 7 months so based on the "basis" of the marriage builders philosophy, why did I develop such deep feelings for him?

An instant connection,eh?
"I met one night" is pretty vague.
Purposely vague.
Makes me suspect (strongly) this meeting was at a bar, and the instant connection was alcohol inspired.



Did you remove thoughts of your little children from your head in order to make space for a drunken one night stand?



You don't need counseling. You need a reality check.
Maybe you need alcohol counseling?



What "things"?
Are you talking about lust?
You must be, because that man was a total stranger, and still is.
Your feelings are really a "high" which means your brain got a flood of a brain chemical called dopamine.




Then, you identify yourself as a person who ALREADY makes major life decisions without any sound reasoning. If it is true and you have NOTHING in common with your H (besides kids .... or did you forget?) then that points the finger at YOU.
YOU ought to be suspicious of your own judgment and lack of decision-making skills.

In reality, you have nothing in common with OM. Not even 2 kids.



Were your kids adopted?



You honor your commitments. That's what you do.



Really?
Because in my heart I think you are a liar and a cheat and a fool.
Who is right?
Who's heart is right?

Use your brain.
God gave you a brain and a soul for a reason.
It certainly wasn't to screw some stranger and then obsess over OM at the expense of your husband and children.

Every second you spend obsessing over OM is time you have not spent thinking about your family, your husband, and your children.
This makes you a mentally/emotionally absent parent/wife.





Well, I guess you have SOMETHING in common.
This is more valuable than anything else you have, and you think about throwing it away for what?
Lust?
A one night stand?

Don't become a bigger fool.
If you have a church, contact a female from that church and ask for help getting over a sickness and an obsession with a drunken one night stand.

Or, continue to "follow your heart" straight to hell, dragging your husband and your kids along for the ride.

I have tried following the plan, but I hate every minute of it. I do not enjoy being with my husband, doing things with him or giving him affection. How will I ever get past this part of it????

I don't believe you ever really tried.

Just for your information, I don't appreciate assumptions. I did not meet him at a bar, was NOT drinking, and did NOT have sex with him. So, there goes your whole theory.

When was your last contact with OM? (this includes looking at his FB page, or looking at any pictures, texts, emails, letters ANYTHING from OM or the A)

Your level of infatuation tells me that it was very recent.

Uhm, you came here. If you truly want help, TAKE THE ADVICE. Don't get defensive. It doesn't help you.

My whole theory is based on the assumption that you made a commitment to your marriage and your children, and you have failed to keep your commitment.

Aren't you cognizant of even a hint of shame or disgust or regret at your own behavior?

Did you meet OM at church?
At your children's school?
At a picnic with your H?

Where & under what circumstances did you meet OM?

PB - I think you're being baited. This lady is a drama-miner.

Actually, I think she is still taking hits off the crackpipe. She never answered the Q about NC even though it was the 2nd post to her.

I am not unaware of that possibility. Thank you.

I think my question is VERY important.

WHERE AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES DID YOU MEET OM?

When the original post omits an important detail, the answering of that detail will reveal much.

Notable post.

It does sound like contact is still going on....contact MUST stop. there is no way to get OM out of your head if you just keep putting him back in there. And yes, thoughts of him will pop up right now....what you DO with those thoughts is up to you.

But I think this is secondary. The sense I get from you is that you don't really have any remorse over what you have done, see it as serious or a big deal, or have any real concept of your husband's pain. It seems to still be all about you....and as long as YOU are all you are thinking about, there will be no recovery.

Sounds like you're describing my WW.

what gets them to change this line of thinking and 'wake up'?

Did you tell your husband about the plan?

Because if not, then you definitely didn't follow it.

Trying to follow "a plan" when you still have contact with OM is like taking aspirin for a headache while hitting yourself on the head with a hammer. NC is essential.

The reason you cannot imagine loving your BH is because you are still entangled with the OM and this LIE that he is your "soul mate." I know because I was a WW....I remember that lie. And trust me, it is a lie.

Right is right whether you feel like it or not. It is time to do what is right and consciously turn from the stinking thinking.

Read this as though you did not write this yourself. What do you see in this post? I will tell you quite honestly what I see...a whiny, immature, spoiled little girl who wants to run away from the commitment for some Romanance Novel notion of what love is.

Let me tell you what love is:

Love is holding your child's hair while she pukes in the toilet in the middle of the night.
Love is meeting your husbands emotional needs because you promised in front of God and family to honor and cherish him.
Love is what you DO not what flutter of butterflies in your stomach
Love is messy, at times hard work and REWARDING
Love is sitting in the pew with your H while you together watch your child walk down the aisle to their future spouse and smile at each other knowing you did this together
Love is laughter and tears, happy and sad, joyful and angry
LOVE IS A COMMITMENT

But strugglingaz, at least be honest with yourself: Your post wasn't titled "Would I be better off single?"; you titled it "Can't get rid of feelings for OM!!!".
Those were your own words.

I'm going to stick with your first stance, which basically tells me that (1) you're infatuated with the OM, and (2) that this infatuation, which you are allowing to persist, is clouding your ability to see your husband as the guy you married.

Can you tell us, have you read "Surviving An Affair"? I'd be interested to know what you thought of it. Looking forward to your reply.

STruggling: Your feelings for the OM and the subsequent conditions of desire, depression, anger, etc is called withdrawal. The same psychological response to eliminating drugs. You are not who you used to be.

Openness and honesty is very important. How can you love your husband if you arent giving him the right tools to fix the situation. Your kids depend on you two to be in love with each other for their future marital success. I know you dont love your husband right now but would you be opposed to letting him meet your emotional needs?

If he does a stellar job you will be in love with him. There are many former cheaters here that are now hopelessy, passionately in love with their spouses.

Please spend time with him alone to share your unhappiness with him so you can start to restore your marriage.

You really dont have any other happy alternatives here. Either fall in love or get divorced with shame, anger, bitterness, and zero respect from your kids.

Tried for what, half a day? It's hard when it's not all about you, you,you!

How will you get past it? Quit comparing your husband to this false Disney Princess picture you have for the s#!+bird that is robbing the fruit of your husband's labor.

Let's be honest; this OM could not have been this little fantasy were it not for the fact that your BH is doing all the work and taking all the blame, while this freeloading dirtbag gets to be "Price Charming."

So tell us about the affair.

How did you meet him?

A timeline?

Is there NC?

**Crickets**

strugglingaz,

You're going to get a lot of 2x4s. You aren't going to find much sympathy here if you're looking to justify your affair.

HOWEVER,

What we very much do wish is to help you rebuild your marriage with your H. Especially for the sake of your children.

But that's going to take some soul searching on your part and you're going to have to answer some tough questions.

Affairs are horribly selfish things. They are painful beyond what you can imagine to the person who has been betrayed. Most of us on this forum were betrayed, but there is a fair share of people who have strayed and then rebuilt their marriage.

I suspect you may not be coming back, but if you do, do so with the understanding that there are no easy answers and we're not going to sugar coat anything about what you've done. You've inflicted pain and trauma on your H that is the equivalent of rape. That's not me saying that. That's the opinion of the psychologist who runs this site. The trauma of infidelity is as bad as rape.

I can imagine and understand since I've never felt pain and betrayal like that that even comes close to comparing.

So understand that we may be harsh, but we do wish to help if you're willing to recognize that what you've done is horrible.

Otherwise, there's other places you can go to talk to people who enjoy affairs and justify them.

If you believe in God at all, then you must understand that you're committing a grave sin and breaking one of the big 10.

That alone should motivate you to make things right.

So come back and share and we can help.

Here's the deal, struggling; no less than 5 of the people who have posted have stood directly in your shoes. They were the ones who cheated, and they talked directly out of their anal sphincters for a time, just like you are now.

You know the thing about talking out of your backside? It always stinks.

I'm sure you think you are "just being honest," but you aren't.

You know you have done something disgusting and horrible, and you don't think you are a disgusting and horrible person, so your mind is grasping at straws for a reason.

If you want the simplest, dryest, most compassionate explanation possible it is this; YOU allowed someone other than your husband to meet your emotional needs.

The operative above all is that you allowed it. 'Nuff said.

Ok. here goes.

Right now you are being controlled by nothing but animalistic hormones, eminating from the reptilian part of your brain. The part of the brain where there are the most basic of instincts, such as sex, hunger, and breathing.

Basically that is what is controlling you.

You are high on nothing but feel good hormones. My xh felt that way too. It lasted with the OW about 18 months, and then he began cheating on her too.

You see, these are the crazy in love (or what you perceive is love)hormones. They will wane quickly. They are not meant by nature to last a long time. It's basically the stuff that gets people mating and creating little people.

Are you a slave to your emotions? Or are you going to try to heal your family from something so horrible, that it will affect your H and your child for the rest of their lives?

You know, this place can help you find the way to a happy and truly loving and IN LOVE marriage. But as long as you are kneeling down to a damn hormone, allowing yourself to be degraded by somebody who would "do" a married woman and disrespect you, then there can be no helping you.

If you want to choose the destructive route, know this. Most "affairages" (affairs which lead to a marriage) fail miserably. Basically no success rate. Your child will grow up in a broken home, being shuffled around from your house to your H's home, and when your affair relationship falls apart and crumbles and you're left with nothing, you will understand how damn destructive listening to your reptilian hormones can be.

God made us to respond sexually to others, but HE intended it to be for creating marriages and families.

Adultery leads to nothing good. Nothing.

Okay peachy, so explain this to me...if you and your ex-husband could have worked it out, you would have never met the wonderful man that you now call your husband. So how do you explain how this all worked out in your favor, with children????

He's mostly "wonderful" by comparison to the train wreck that was and is her ex wayward husband.

Ex-husband could have chosen to be "wonderful" himself and that would have made things a whole lot easier and better for all involved.

Peachy never would have known the difference between THIS wonderful man and the hypothetical wonderful ex husband.


Your choices don't include being the happy peachy in a God provided loving relationship...but rather are necessarily limited to either being her horrible, forever wayward, miserable and lost ex-husband OR the hypothetical "wonderful" ex-husband that decided to forgo his lustful and sinful nature and repent.

You either turn your life around or those around you and YOU mostly will suffer the inevitable consequences. It's a law of nature. Peachy's ex made his choices...the outcome is just as inevitable as yours should you continue on that same path.

Mr. W

Oh yeah...one way or another it does usually work out for the betrayed spouse. Although the advice you are getting seems to you to be geared towards helping out your betrayed spouse, typically it's not. We are trying to save you. It's YOUR life that's gonna suck if you continue on this path. It's your kids that are going to suffer (despite Peachy finding herself a new great guy...her son is stick stuck with the same POS dad).

Your spouse is going to make it regardless.

Mr. W

"Happier not married"

Too late. Sorry. You already chose. You already made the commitment. What gives you the right to choose again?? Just because people get divorced all the time doesn't make it right.


As far as never seeing a marriage you'd want to model...well, why don't you and your husband endeavor TOGETHER to become such a model marriage for your friends and family (especially your children). Presuming your parents didn't have model marriage look at what that's done to your thinking. How about stepping up to the challenge and breaking the cycle???

Become the model marriage.

You are only 30ish. I got married when I was thirty. Put yours and your husbands mistakes behind you and build something new and better. My wife and I did...so can you.

Mr. W

Let me say that if you have ANY feelings for you BH. Dont do this to him. I have had major surgery, lost my only sibling sister to drugs and buried her. NEVER has anything hurt me more and for a LONGER TERM than my wife cheating on me EMOTIONALLY. I still break down and cry and tears well up as I type this. I would rather burn to Death quickly than live one year betrayed.
Break the contact to the OM now and follow MB plan. A year from now you will read your posts and wonder what a stranger you were to yourself.

You have ignored the question about whether there is NC several times now so I am going to go ahead and read between the lines and assume there is still some level of contact (as defined for you earlier).

This is why you cannot get past your infatuation for the OM...so stop blaming the plan, your H and anything else.

NC is step #1. None of the rest of it works without NC.

You can't recover your marriage with your H until you have no contact with the OM.

And you're talking to the worst people in the world that no one would ever want to be married to. You see, we were all terrible husbands and wives. We all were inattentive. All of us made our wayward spouses miserable because we are horrible human beings.

OR

You can understand if we have already lived through the standard re-writes of marital history that waywards engage in and find the comments about how terrible your marriage is to ring hollow. What you're doing is very standard.

But it takes two people to make a marriage unhappy. How did you communicate your lack of happiness to your H? Was it direct or did you do so by dropping hints and hoping he'd get it?

I ask that because men don't do well with hints. Oftentimes a woman feels that she couldn't make things more clear, but the reality is that she's speaking a whole nother language.

So what did YOU do to make your marriage a poor one? How did you communicate with your H? What did you do to try to increase the quality time you spent together?

As far as your earlier comments about ending up with better "new" spouses:

The cost of any new found happiness comes at your children's expense.

They don't want you and your H to split, regardless of what you tell yourself, and no, they won't just be fine.

Look up the statistics on divorce for kids and see for yourself.

My kids are paying the price to this day.

The odds for the betrayed finding happiness again are very good. Those of the wayward are worse. The affair marriages they enter into don't usually last and then they wrestle with the guilt of destroying their kid's existence.

I am assuming you were asking about peachy's situation as some kind of implication that somehow this OM could be for you what peachy's H is for her......uh, not even the same thing. When someone begins a relationship with a man while married....it's isn't God's provision of a soul mate, it's adultery.

Nothing will ever get better until YOU make the choice to never contact the OM and close all channels of contact. How do you do that? You do it, you stick to it, and you just weather through the withdrawal, knowing that it is part of the consequences of making a bad choice.

There is not magical fat burning pill to fix this.

Damn straight.

struggling, contact can also be defined as you going online and searching for OM's name or looking at his picture on FB. It doesn't have to be face-to-face, or email/phone/text/whatever.

Suspending disbelief for a moment, if the suspicions of folks that think there is some sort of contact going on are incorrect, and there is no contact between you and OM, then something else is still in the picture here....Fantasizing about OM or any other attractive male in your life, someone at work, maybe? Are you letting your intimate EN's be met at all by anyone else of the opposite sex?

If you are stuck in continually fantasizing about how your life would be "different," you are ignoring the fact that in front of you is a man who has forgiven you, who wants to preserve his M with you, and that is love. As incredibly painful as infidelity is for BS's (which is something I can't even fathom, being a FWS), your BH is walking through fire for you.

For you.

Let that sink in, and then tell yourself that marriage is a joke.

As Mr. W said, become the model marriage. Be the marriage that everyone else you know is jealous of.

I'd give anything to be in your shoes, and have that chance.

Struggling,

How was your H able to meet your ENs sufficiently if he wasn't around?

Struggling,

I know how you feel.

I used to think this too. In fact, for the first six years of my marriage I was very ambivalent about staying with my wife, whether I could or would long term, used to imagine what it would be like with someone else etc. I had the classic Freeloader mentality.

Also, I had had no model of what a great marriage was. I certainly didn't want my parents' marriage even though they've been together 37 years. I am an atheist so any religious justification for marriage was utterly lost on me and I just plain wasn't sold on the idea. If anyone told me that my decisions were making a loving marriage impossible I would have flatly denied it.

Then I turned 31 in July 2007.

In January 2008 my darling wife whose feelings I had ridden roughshod over, whom I had verbally abused and sidelined virtually since we met found herself an OM, left me and moved in with him. The pain was so great there are no words in English to really describe it, I couldn't eat or breathe and it felt like someone had taken an axe to my chest. That pain lingered for months.

Needless to say I feel very differently about marriage these days and treat my wife very differently thanks to what I've learned here.

You have no idea what you're about to lose.

I appreciate that you're unhappy but the price you pay to fix that with your H pales in comparison to the price you'll pay if you break your family up.

You are suffering from the same syndrome we have all seen or lived. I had an A a long, long time ago. I thought the OW came into my life for a special reason. It turns out she used me as a @#ck buddy, and I guess I treated her the same. At the time, it was a perfect fantasy relationship. Looking back, we were just a piece of *ss for each other. I almost lost my M because of it, but my dear wife stuck with me.

My wife's recent A had her convinced of the exact same fantasy: the OM came into her life for a reason. She was tired of living like roommates with me. He was her "soulmate." My wife found it so easy to talk to him. He was a knight in shining armour. He would raise our young children. He loved her. He couldn't stop thinking about her. She never felt this way about any man before. He was "special."

You see, these A's really are the same old tired story. You believe you are in a marriage where you are "roommates" and you lead separate lives. This OM promises so much more. You feel alive around him. He is so special. There must be something cosmic about him coming into our life now. He will rescue your heart and make you whole again.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but your story is my story and my wife's story-- just change the names. In the end, your "special" OM is really just another skank-ho dude who wants a piece of *ss without the commitment of having to live under the same roof as you and your kids.

This OM is a man with zero morals. He doesn't respect you or your M. He would never be faithful to you if you were together with him. Why would he? And how could he ever trust you? A woman who cheats on her H and children. When you start seeing him as a parasite looking to suck the life out of you, you will quickly lose these feelings for him.

Focus on the gifts you have in front of you. Show your children a woman they can respect and admire for the choices she has made. You have an opportunity right now to show your true character.

What road are you going to choose? Your kids are watching...

THANK YOU so much wisertoday. That is exactly what I was looking for. I was NOT asking for forgiveness or trying to make people believe that what I did was right. I just wanted to hear from someone who has been in the exact same boat as me and tell me that there is hope and that love can be restored. All of you people who just wanted to point fingers at me and tell me what a horrible person I am did zero good because I already knew this.

There is hope and you have come to the right place. I wish you every success restoring love to your marriage.

This is good. Recognizing that your choices were poor is the first step to restoring the love you've said you wish to do.

A lot of us have been in the same boat that you are in, myself included. Of course you can restore the love in your marriage, but you absolutely cannot do so as long as you are in contact with the OM. Would you please answer the question that has been asked of you quite a few times?

Are you still in contact with the OM?

Have you sent a NC letter to the OM and severed all ties with him?

Until you take this crucial first step, there's nothing anyone here will be able to do to help you start down that path to restoring the love in your marriage.

I have not been in contact with the OM for a week or so and no I have not sent the NC letter. However, even if all contact from him is ceased, won't the questions or things/time that I enjoyed with him forever be on my mind or will those eventually wane as well? Constructive criticism only please.

The more distance and time between yourself and the OM, the more the fantasy will fade. Wisertoday could have written my story too. OM was just a garage band reject false fantasy FWB who cared nothing about me....and my feelings for him were based on thin air. The longer I went without any contact, working on my M and myself, the more clear this became.

How were you in contact? FB? Text? Email? All of the above?

We were in contact just through texting and an occasional phone call. We live 5 states away from each other, so am not seeing him.

It takes awhile to go through withdrawal, certainly more than a week. The feelings most certainly will fade with time, especially as you focus your energies on reconnecting with your H and rebuilding your marriage.

The first thing you need to do is send a formal NC letter to your OM. This needs to be a very simple, straightforward letter telling him that you have chosen to work on your marriage and that you wish to have no contact with him at all for life. Have your H read and send the letter. There are sample NC letters on this site, though I don't have the links to them right now.

Are you FB friends?

Even seeing his picture or hearing his name will be a huge trigger, especially this early in the process. You need to maintain absolute and strict NC. Each time you have contact with the OM, it sets your withdrawal and recovery clock back to day one.

In your very first post you say this:


Then you say this:


This is the problem. Every time you make contact, you are resetting the clock back in your recovery. Does your BH know about your contact? If he doesn't, you're still not being honest with him, even though you've been in counseling for five weeks. You're in counseling under false pretenses.

Come clean with your husband. He has a right to know. Dr. Harley says there is a very narrow path for recovery and one of the first things that must be done is that contact with the OM must end FOREVER. Contact includes texting.

Yes. I missed this time discrepancy. If you have been in counseling for 5 weeks and have had contact as recently as a week ago.....your BH needs to know about this contact. And writer is right as well. No FB, no googling him, no looking at tagged photos of him, no asking anyone how he's doing, no reading old emails (they should be deleted after your BH has had the chance to see if he wants to). Remove any momentos, cards, etc.

Every time you think of him replace those thoughts intentionally. Begin making a gratitude list of things about your BH. If you are a person of faith, reading Scripture can do wonders - I went through the book of Psalms after D-Day. And if you haven't, read Surviving An Affair. It had a profound impact on me.

No. If you and your BH work the MB program, spend the minimum UA time together each week fulfilling the intimate EN's (in good marriages, Dr. H recommends 15 hours, but in cases where couples are struggling I've seen anywhere from 20-30 hours recommended), you will fall in love with your BH again.

And, if you spend some time on here reading the boards, pay close attention to the posts and threads of BH's. That will give you a good taste of what your BH is feeling. That that is the kind of pain you put your BH through. Any leftover feelings for the OM will fade pretty quickly in light of that.

You asked if there is hope to restore your M. Of course there's hope. There are many posters on this board who have successfully recovered their marriages. There are others, like yours truly, who have not. Some BS's cannot recover from the betrayal,the lies, and the abuse we WS's inflicted on them. But if your BH is willing to give recovery a try, give it your all.



Please follow princessmeggy's advice here. It will crush your BH even more to discover that he's been putting so much effort into recovering your M when the whole time you've been lying. I know from experience.

Yes, so we started the MB weekly sessions with Steve 5 weeks ago, thinking that I could get the OM out of my head and move on, without my spouse knowing anything of the affair. It wasn't working as I still had some contact with OM. However, a week ago yesterday, my husband found an email I had sent the OM and obviously exposed the affair. He left for a week and since returned, wanting to work on our marriage through continued efforts of working with Dr. Harley.

Wulfpack girl...would you be willing to tell of your story with the OM. It does me so much good to know that the feelings I am feeling are normal and routine for "affair-goers".

Ah now the truth comes out. Does your BH post here too?

Did you tell Steve Harley you were still in touch with the OM? And did he tell you to tell your H?

That would be about as helpful as an alcoholic reminiscing about drunkeness. It does nothing but keep you enmeshed in the tarpit. She has told the story of the disaster of her marriage over on the In Recovery forum, though. You can read her thread over there. She considers it the worst mistake she has ever made, I believe.

No, the BH doesn't post here. Also, a question I have, is how is it possible to have 20 hours of UA with small children in the home when both me and H work until 5 daily.

Yes Steve told me that I had to tell my husband and I couldn't do it.

While my wife was still in contact with OM through texting and phone calls, she would have emotional breakdowns and cry over many things that reminded her of him. It was a rollercoaster ride for sure. When she agreed to complete NC, her feelings for him started to lessen, even within the first few weeks.

Now that we are 4 months into NC, she is really embarrassed and remorseful that she made such a grave error in judgement. She has no emotional setbacks, and we are stronger now than we have ever been. My long ago A and her recent A has caused us to see the value in our M. Affair partners may as well be the devil in disguise. How is it that you can develop intense feelings for someone who will destroy you and your family?

My wife and I have learned from our A's that there is no man or woman out there who can meet our needs like we can for each other. We found a way to reconnect and make our M strong. It CAN be done. We are living proof. You must have complete honesty and respect for your spouse, and have a desire to meet all of each other's emotional needs.

It may sound like a tall task, but it really isn't. I can give you this warning though: Fifteen years later, I can still have a "flashback" about the OW if I hear certains songs that were played when we were together. There isn't any overwhelming feelings I feel for her, but songs cause a memory flashback that I can't control So for me, I avoid certain music.

The bottom line is that you can change anything you want about yourself in the present. If you are motivated to do this, you will alter the course of your future, and you can make your M stronger than even the best fantasy you may have experienced in your A.

You mean you wouldn't do it. But anyway ...

How many weeks into your phone sessions did Steve Harley learn that you had the affair?

I want to be sure we get this straight.

When will you be telling him?

Hi struggling, we have two kids as well so it can be a challenge to get the UA time in. If you need to, write it down or schedule it. Go over it with your husband, I'm sure you can agree on when good times would be.

Us, for instance, have lunch together every day so there's an hour. Then we set aside 1/2 hour (5:30-6:00) after supper and before the kids go to bed. We use a kitchen timer, set it for 1/2 hour and tell the kids they cannot come into our room until the timer goes off. Sure, they don't always follow the rules, but you do the best you can.

The kids are down by 8:00 and my wife is generally up until 9:30 or 10:00 so there's another 1.5-2hrs for a total of 3 hours or so per day on the weekdays. Add the weekends and it's fairly easy to hit 20 or more.

It just takes practice, and I admit that, at first, it's hard to do this when we had gotten so good at just being roommates and parents, but it really makes a difference.

After about a week or so it becomes more natural and you won't be sitting there trying to think of what to say. To help with that, try doing something together--making dessert, playing a boardgame, anything really.

Delta, Steve knew before my H and I started our sessions together. Melodylane, my husband found out last weekend.

Again, wisertoday, great information. I appreciated your honesty in admitting that you do still think of OW once in a while. My question for you, and please don't take this the wrong way, is how did you not affair proof your marriage after your initial affair? What happened between your and her affair that allowed hers to take place? Thanks again for your wise words.

Are you going to pay your husband back for the four or five counseling sessions he paid for that did no good because you chose not to follow the advice?

FYI Markos, I am the breadwinner of the family and paid for the counseling sessions. Again...more assumptions about female gender roles.

struggling, my massive thread is over in Recovery, here. I tend to be a bit, uhm, verbose at times, and you have to wade through a lot of hand-wringing and b*tching and moaning from me...let's just say this has been a looong road.

In a nutshell, my A was with an old HS boyfriend who reconnected with me on FB. What began as an EA turned PA fast, once it got rolling. We had a prior history (something Dr. H warns about), so we did a lot of fantasizing about how different life would have been if we'd ended up together, that we were "soulmates" and "meant for each other." We actually only saw each other in person only a handful of times - we met at restaurants and had lunch on 5 occasions and met twice for sex. Our A was fueled by texts, emails, and in particular FB and online chat. I lived for that "hit" of another email, another text. It was my crack pipe. But while I lived for his words of appreciation and affirmation, thinking he was making me feel good about myself, in reality I was not feeling good about myself at all. I am in no way excusing my behavior with alcohol, but I drank to excess during the A. I'd drink a bottle of wine a night, parked in front of the computer on FB. Self-medication for the cognitive dissonance, perhaps.

When my BH confronted me with everything, it was like having cold water thrown on me. I knew right then that I had f-ed up. That I didn't want OM, I wanted my BH. I realized what I stood to lose. And I lied my butt off trying to keep my BH. Something happened during the first few months of R, I fell crazy, head-over-heels in love with my BH again. We didn't know a thing about MB, but he was essentially Plan-A'ing me. Meeting my needs like a champ. But I kept lying to him. I lied because I didn't want him to know the A was a PA. I could give a multitude of excuses as to why I lied, but it boils down to one fact - I lied because I was a coward.

The feelings you feel for the OM will go away, if you cease contact. Now, thoughts of the OM disgust me. There's no fantasy about how our lives would have been different together. I hate him for what he helped destroy. Chances are my M will never recover from the damage I caused, and the bittersweet irony is that I'm still hopelessly in love with my BH.

Anyway, that's my story - there's other FWW's on here that may have struggled with withdrawal more than I did. Don't be the coward I was. I tormented my BH with trickle truth. Listen to MelodyLane, princessmeggy, all the vets on this board. If you can take the 2X4's that will come your way, if you can hang around here long enough, maybe - I hope - your M will recover.

Does he know everything?

What does 2x4's mean? Thank you so much for reiterating your story for me.

Sorry Mel!!! I did a load of laundry in the middle of my post and missed your reply!!! But yeah, hands down: Worst. Mistake. Ever. Maybe some bit of that will make it through the fog.

Yes, Markos.

It's kind of a, uhm, smack to your senses? Saying, you screwed up, wake up, fly right?

For example, Stop lying to your BH and do what Steve H said and please, please tell your BH the truth about the contact with OM. And anything else you may have left out.

Mel does 2X4's the best I've seen!

No, more assumption about wayward entitlement. Correct ones, I might add.

strugglinginaz, there is a way out of the mess you've made. It can and does get better. But the first steps, often the hardest, are what need to happen.

The posters here are giving you valuable advice; whether it comes across as "harsh" or "unconstructive," or instead seems like just the warm and fuzzy hug that you want, you are being given information that can only help you.

You'll see the pain of betrayal from the BS. You'll see the agony of the repentant wayward. The harsh words should reflect the magnitude of what you've done to your H by your infidelity. The remorse in the words of the FWSs is what you should seek to find in your own heart for the actions you committed against your BH and your M.

It gets better, but it's not a cakewalk. NC has to be in place. I will try bumping a thread for you re: managing memories -- very helpful in nipping any lingering fond thoughts over OM in the bud.

Please, read through this sight, counsel w/ Steve, post and read posts with an open heart and humility. Stop looking for fights and personal attacks. You're only standing in your own way.

struggling, will you please bring us up to speed on your sessions with Steve -- Still doing them? What's the most recent activity he had you complete? Does your husband now know all the details of your affair? Are you holding anything back?

I did counseling with Steve, too, so I imagine he gave you specific tasks to do when you start thinking about OM. What did he advise you to do?

Mark1952 is/was(?) a prolific poster, and many a member - BS and WS alike - found great insight in his posts.

Managing Memories

Thanks Mrs Vanilla, I was just looking for that.

You're welcome. If you have, I don't know, a spare three weeks or so, you could read through all of Mark's prodigious posts. WPG says she's verbose, but I think Mark could outlast any of us...

Okay, I'll reword it: are you going to do anything about the pain your husband went through from trying to go through all these counseling sessions which did no good because you chose not to follow the advice?

Poor guy; you set him up to fail.

Just an excerpt from Mark's Managing Memories thread:

Actually Markos, it did do him and I good. Because he tells me that had it not been for the last 5 weeks with Steve and the knowledge he gained from this, he would have filed for divorce the day after learning of the affair. With the knowledge he gained, he knew that the problems facing us could be repaired.

Good point. I'm glad to hear it.

Question ignored again. *sigh*

I asked if you were FB friends because that would be a violation of NC and will keep you from moving forward.

So...are you FB friends with OM?

No Susie, you asked that and I said only texting. We are not FB friends.

struggling, it's really frightening that you were told by Steve to tell the truth and did not.

Have you followed any of Steve's instructions at all?

Are you going to follow it going forward?

struggling, you may have missed my questions last night:

You prioritize it above everything else. You sit down with a schedule for the next week and you put your UA time in with ink and schedule everything else around it. It comes first.

I have a toddler and until recently DH and I both worked until 5.

DD goes to bed between 7 and 8. We go to bed between 10 and 11. This gives us anywhere from 2-4 hours A NIGHT. Which is anywhere from 14 to 28 hours a week. We would do chores together while talking about our day (i.e. fold laundry together while watching a movie, clean the kitchen together while dreaming about the future, etc.) Thus time spent maintaining our household was also time spent together. We usually felt closer after things like this so we count it as UA time.

Again, after DD goes to bed, rather than going to our own pursuits we do things together. Sunday night is movie night. Monday, Wed and Saturday are game nights. Friday is date night. Tuesday and Thursday are story nights where we read stories together. See, we SCHEDULE activities so the time isn't just wasted. There is a link here for a Recreational Activity Inventory. Go through it and pick things to do together and give yourselves activities to do during UA time.

Early in our marriage we learned how to dance at home in our living room.

Occasionally we'll wake up an hour early before DD goes to bed and spend the morning together eating breakfast. We'd meet up for lunch once a week.

All our extra-curriculars were put on the back burner for a while until we developed the habit of spending time together. Now it is effortless. Now that we're consistently hitting the amount of time we need, we've started adding in the extras. I've started spending time on my reading and I go to a book club with other women, DH has stepped up his personal exercise routine and has gotten back into his hobbies - but we let those go for a while so we could focus on spending time with each other. Now we schedule our personal stuff around the couple time.

It is tough with small kids, and it may seem impossible, but is it entirely doable.

We've already decided that when DD gets older she is going to be allowed only a limited number of extra curricular activities. I don't believe it is healthy to over-schedule children and so I'm not going to be running to ballet and soccer and piano lessons and gymnastics and ... and ... and... Her activities will be limited so that we can have a minimum of 15 hours of family time a week as well as the 15 hours of couple UA time.

It's about priorities.

OK all of these items from the A/OM are also going to violate NC and keep you stuck.

Pictures
Notes
Texts
Emails
Momentos
Contact info still on phone/email (should be deleted)

Do you have any of these?

Keeping ANY secrets will also keep you stuck. Have you told your H the truth yet? If not do you plan to? If so WHEN?

It may feel like we are hammering you...but we are actually trying to help you.

Because it was a FANTASY...you only saw the "good side" of him and he only saw the "good side" of you. You both were lying to each other and only showing the side of you that you wanted to share.

An A is not a real-world relationship. Ask anyone who's had an A and they will tell you this. If you are honest with yourself you will know this to be true.

A week is NOTHING.

When you and your H begin replacing what you *thought* you had with your AP with UA time (Undivided Attention) time, RC (Recreational Companionship) time, Conversations, Affection and SF (Sexual Fulfillment), the thoughts and feelings you had for the OM will fade QUICKLY. He will begin to disgust you as you and your H fill these needs for each other.

BUT...you must, must, MUST have NC ~ and that includes everything as someone else mentioned (looking at FB, etc.). There is no getting around this. If NC is broken, it will set you back to square one.

Actually, your H DID pay for it since married couples are MARRIED and funds are MARRIAGE FUNDS. Money that you earn isn't "your money". It's family money. That is how a MARRIAGE works.

And she doesn't feel this way only because wpg's husband has left her...my H feels the same way and our M is better than ever and I have not left him.

Your M can be better than anything you've ever imagined but you MUST follow the "rules" of recovery. There is no way around that.

Yup. Same with my H. After ANY contact with the OW, even if they didn't see each other at work but just were both there on the same day, he would feel confused about me and the M.

It took about a month of 100% NC (leaving the workplace and deleting any trace of her, including ditching any mutual friends, everything) and the fog lifted. He wanted NOTHING to do with the OW and repeatedly said how embarrassed he was over what he had done.

Right. I have heard this same thing many times as well.

NC is the crux of recovery.

Our last session with Steve we had scheduled out our 15 hours per week and emailed them to him. He hasn't given me any tasks to do when I think of the OM, has just asked if I still do.

It's hard to get a lot of information out of you, and that leads us to try to help you by making guesses about your situation that might or might not be right. It's just about all we can do when you are so slow to answer questions and reluctant to volunteer information.

For example, you were asked:


It was reposted one more time before you answered it.

And so far the only part of this you've answered is what your most recent assignment with Steve was.

You were also asked:


And your answer was a bit evasive:


Can you clear up this timeline a bit? Can you start volunteering clarifying information? It looks like you are trying to say the very minimum to answer. If you'd be just a bit more helpful it would reduce a lot of the assumptions that bother you so much.

So did you have sessions with Steve before your husband joined? How many sessions with just you? How many sessions with you and your husband? How many, total?

This doesn't make any sense to me. It is a good thing that your H has hope for the M while you continue to deceive him? If you aren't serious about NC, EPs and radical honesty/transparency with your H, then he has every right to file for D. Why should he continue meeting some of your ENs while you continue to do things that jeopardize the M?

I would appreciate it if you would answer the post where I asked you line by line about items that are violations of NC.

Thank you!

Why not? Wouldn't it be best to give your marriage the best chance possible by getting both of you involved?

Steve will discuss withdrawal with you if you tell him you're having troubles. He'll give you practical tools to combat your symptoms of sadness and anxiety.

Your suffering and pain is real, as selfish as that may sound to others.

Steve may recommend anti-depressants to alleviate your symptoms.

Your pull to the OM is still strong. You had contact with him only a week ago. Be determined to not contact OM again because it will only set you back to experiencing all this grief again and again.

struggling, you didn't answer my other questions.

Does your H know all the details of your affair? Are you still holding things back?

Has Steve had you complete the How and Why statements yet?

Okay, so I called Steve by myself the first session approximately 6 weeks ago. He told me that I had to end all contact with the OM. At this point in time, my husband and I were separated. So, my H moved back in after I told him all about MB and we started sessions together 5 weeks ago. So I had one by myself, my H and I together have had 5. My H just found out about the affair a week ago, so basically we start over.

No, Delta, we did not complete the How and Why statements. Yes, he does know everything about the affair. I have no pictures, texts, emails or anything from our relationship, only memories. I have told my H about me posting on here and what has been replied and that he should get on here and read as well to help with his healing.

Why were you and your H separated 6 weeks ago if he didn't even know about the A? What was the cause of the separation then and how long were you separated?

We were separated because I told him things weren't working between us and we mutually made the decision, thinking that if he was gone, I would miss him, make me want him back, etc. We were separated for almost a month.

Do you see now that the real reason you separated was so that you could carry on your A without worrying about your H finding out?

It's very important that you realize this so you can start to see how foggy your thinking was/is.

How long has your H been back in the home? Did he come back after he found out about the A or before?

Yes I know that is why I wanted him to move out. He has been back in the home since the 15th of January. He found out about the affair last weekend and left for a week to clear his mind. He hasn't returned except to just talk about what the future holds.

So, you and your H are not currently living together?

Have you started on that NC letter to the OM yet?

Has your H exposed this A to anyone? Have you told anyone? Who knows about the A, other than you and your H?

Strugglingaz,

You wouldn�t be here if there wasn�t a part of you that very much wants to rebuild rather than destroy your marriage. You�ve taken the 2x4s and are open to at least staying on the forum, which is good.

But you can�t rebuild and your marriage has no hope unless contact ends completely.

We�re all human and flawed and subject to temptation. The secret to overcoming that temptation is recognizing it when it rears its ugly head and then doing something to overcome it.

Talk to your husband when that temptation hits. Let him meet your emotional need.

Don�t demand things from him. You can�t change his behavior. You can only change yours. What can you do to make your marriage better? How can you meet your husband�s emotional needs?

Let him come here and we can talk to him about he can meet yours.

Everyone knows of the affair. My family, our friends, his family, the entire town we live in, etc. I will work on the NC letter.

Please don't exaggerate, there is no way the "entire town" you live in knows of your A.

We are asking for details, as this is important.

Do BOTH sets of parents know?
Do both yours and your husbands siblings know?
Do ALL of your close friends know?
Do ALL mutual friends of yours and the OM know?
Do your children know?

Also, is the OM married? Does his wife or girlfriend know about the A?

The OM has no significant other. Married forever, everyone you mentioned does know. My children don't know because they are 5 and 2.

Ok, so it's been exposed properly.

What are you in need of help with? IMHO the best thing you can and should be doing right now is asking us "what are the best things I can be doing now to repair the damage I have done and to have the best marriage possible?".

But it would be best if you put it in your own words.

I have a random question just to throw out there for anyone...why is it that some (probably most) marriages go on with neither spouse meeting the others emotional needs and they do not fall in the trap of affairs and/or they stay married forever?

It is called BOUNDARIES. People with naturally good, healthy boundaries will not fall into the "trap" of having an affair to solve their momentary or longer unhappiness with the M.

Complacency and defeat. That's my guess.

"Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."

It's the same reason some women stay with abusers. And, as we're finding out, men, too. Women can be abusers, as well.

Healthy personal boundaries and a strong commitment on the part of the individuals in the marriage.

Boundaries meaning what exactly?

Strict spouses who don't let them do anything?

Because in those marriages, the spouses have boundaries in place. We are all wired to have affairs, according to Dr. H. Admittedly, he says it is rare for a married couple who are "in love" to have an affair, but if our spouse is not meeting our needs, that does not cause us to have A's. The reason we have A's is b/c we have poor boundaries with the opposite sex.

Boundaries, as well as Extraordinary Precautions, are what keep a person from having A's.

I'll see if I can find you a good link, unless one of the vets beats me to it!

Not like that - it's as Vibrissa said, personal boundaries.

Please elaborate on "personal boundaries" if one would. Thank you!!

Nope.

Boundaries are parameters you place on your own behavior.

My boundaries are about ME, my behavior, my actions and my choices. They are a reflection of my integrity and beliefs and who it is I want to be.

For example one of my boundaries is I will not discuss my marriage with a member of the opposite sex.

Another is I will not put myself in a situation where I am alone with a member of the opposite sex.

Another is I will not allow my intimate needs to be met by anyone other than my husband.

Another is I will live my life in an honest and straightforward manner, open to all.

Boundaries are about me.

There are boundaries about what I will accept in a partner, such as:

I will not allow myself to be abused. If someone attempts to violate this boundary I will remove myself from this presence.

Boundaries cannot force my spouse to do anything. It is his choice to do or not do whatever he wishes, and it then to me to respond how I chose.

I'm not into spouses 'letting' each other do things. A healthy marriage involves two adults making decisions for their actions. As adults they should then be willing to bear any consequences for those decisions.

There are actions, and there are consequences. I would like my husband to meet my needs. Should he chose not to, then he has to be ok with the consequence that he will have a withdrawn spouse who doesn't love him.

LOL...noooooo.

Your boundaries only control YOU. As in "I will open myself to the possibility of an affair because I will not have personal conversations with people of the opposite sex; I will not engage in recreational activities with people of the opposite sex; I will hide ANYTHING from my spouse".

See how all of those boundaries were in YOUR control? Yet you did not adhere to good, clean personal boundaries.

You cannot put boundaries on others and they cannot put boundaries on you. YOU needed to have boundaries in place so that an affair wasn't even POSSIBLE.

Make sense?

A few examples of boundaries/EPs:

No friendships with opposite sex
No overnights away from spouse
No recreational relationships that don't include spouse
No drugs, no intoxication
Limit alcohol intake
Limit computer use
Transparency in all aspects of life including activities, communication

Edited

Herpapabear's EXCELLENT thread on Extraordinary Precautions:

Link

A couple of my personal boundaries:

No man shall speak to me in a manner which my husband would find unacceptable. When it happens, I shut it down, leave, etc.

I will not give my spouse a third chance.


Some EPs we have in place:

No joking texts to opposite sex

Limited texting to others, period

When at work with opposite sex, talk about spouse in coversation whenever possible. Always compliment spouse to others.

We are each other's greatest advocates. Show it.

(can you tell my dh's affair was work related?)

Vibrissa,

I think both those posts are about enforcing one's boundaries against a spouse who commits abusive acts. They are about not allowing a spouse to verbally abuse you or treat you badly. They are not about the personal boundaries that a married individual must make and reinforce in order not to have an affair. They will possibly confuse this poster.

Yeah I grabbed the wrong post then the forum went down gonna go edit now.

I get the idea of what everyone is trying to get across. Does each couple get to set their own EP's and does each individual set their own boundaries? I think some of them are a little strict, such as not having any friendship with a person of the opposite sex or not staying a night away from a spouse. I personally feel like if these were expected of me by my spouse or vice versa, one would get the feeling that they were "trapped" or "imprisoned" and would cause the reverse responses that one was trying to achieve??? Any insight on this?

Hi strugglin...

Happy marriages are interdependent marriages. Having friends of the opposite sex is a just asking for trouble -- same with spending nights apart. Shift your perspective -- CHOOSE to spend time building your marriage -- When thinking in terms of EPs replace the words "have to" with "get to" - remind yourself what a blessing it is to have someone to share your life with. Or not. Remember, this is all voluntary, you certainly don't have to do it, but it is how things are done in happy marriages.

I can tell you that I do not feel "imprisoned" or "trapped"...I feel LUCKY...I feel BLESSED...I feel CHERISHED...I feel LOVED...Spending all my time with Mr. W is a great pleasure -- he is my favorite person on the planet... But there was a time when that was not true -- click on my name and go read my very first posts here -- I am a FWW and I was foggy as all get out upon arrival here in 2005.

Today, Mr. W and I are enjoying the fruits of a wonderfully recovered marriage...I pray the same for you and your husband.

Mrs. W

strugglinginaz, I love that you're tackling this stuff. Good for you. You seem to be headed in the right direction.

Ideally, you and your BH should sit down and discuss EPs together. This helps you POJA (Policy of Joint Agreement) what's important to you and what's important to your spouse.

It may seem farfetched right now, but the ultimate goal is having a marriage where you love and care for your spouse, where you would be loathe to do anything to upset them. And vice-versa. The MB program is designed to create just that, but it has to be followed: NC, 15h+ UA time, EPs, etc. Once that happens, once you and your BH have that "fall in love, stay in love" objective achieved, you'll realize you don't feel trapped or imprisoned at all. It's positive reinforcement: the more you two guard your LB$s for each other, the more you two make deposits in those LB$s by meeting each other's ENs, the more you'll want to.

You set your EPs - and your husband lets you know what it will take for him to feel safe. It is your choice if you want to live within the parameters that he feels safe and secure with or not. You don't get to decide what creates a sense of security and safety for him.

If he is uncomfortable with you have male friends - you are free to have male friends, but then you have to live with the consequence: a husband who feels unsafe, and who cannot trust you and likely who feels that your need for male friends is more important than his wellbeing and safety.

You are free to do whatever you want. But you cannot pick the consequences of your actions. You cannot remove the results of your choices.

If you feel male friendships are so important, are they more important than your marriage? Are they more important than your children being raised in a stable, loving environment with BOTH their parents?

I had a very close guy friend who I worked with. We would talk about our lives, our marriages, our families. After reading and understanding how affairs begin, I realized that my friendship with him COULD be dangerous.

I sent him some information I found from this site on how affairs begin and I informed him that I felt our friendship needed to have boundaries put in place. So we changed the dynamic of our friendship. Gone was our fun, flirty behavior. Gone were our friendly lunches. Gone was his number from my cell phone. Gone were our talks about what went on with our spouses.

His response: "I would hate to damage my marriage, sorry but no friendship is worth hurting my wife."

His marriage was more important than a good, close friendship with me. As it should be.

You made the choice to be married. That means that no action you do is done in a vacuum that affects you alone. EVERYTHING you do from the time you wake up til you go to bed affects your husband. EVERYTHING.

Your actions can build love or destroy it. One or the other.

So, is a friendship with a guy more important than creating an atmosphere of safety and mutual protection in your marriage?

It isn't 'expected' of you - but if you want a strong, vibrant, loving and intimate marriage - that requires certain behaviors. If you aren't willing to do them, then you won't get the results you want.

You have already demonstrated appallingly bad behavior and decision making ability. You have already demonstrated you are incapable of healthy, marriage preserving boundaries with a member of the opposite sex. Do you want to continue taking risks for the sake of exerting your 'independence'?

You made the commitment, you wear the ring. You can chose to act committed and welcome it, or you can chose to see your marriage as a prison, see the commitment as a trap. It doesn't have to be.

There is an analogy I have always loved.

If you're driving down a windy mountain road that you've never been on in the middle of the night, do you go as fast as you can as close to the edge as possible? Or do you drive slow and carefully, staying as far away from the edge as possible? What if your kids are in the back seat?

Because your kids ARE in the back seat. Continued poor decision making will not damage you NEARLY as much as it will damage them - it will scar them for the rest of their life. I am living testament to that. My mother had an affair and destroyed my childhood when I was only 2. At 29 I am STILL wrestling with the demons she left me. I'm STILL picking up the pieces of the mess she made.

You can ride as close to the edge as you want, but if you want to ensure the safety of you, your husband and your kids, you'll hug that mountain side of the road and won't come close to the edge for all you're worth.

I strongly suggest you read the book "Between two worlds, the inner lives of children of divorce" Educate yourself as to the REAL costs that will be borne if you chose to live close to the edge.

What she said.

Also, the further you get from your A, the more you and your BH work the program, I think you'll realize why most EPs include no opposite-sex friendships, no nights away from your spouse, etc. They are necessary safeguards to your M. They are you saying you will protect your BH, your M, and your integrity - saying that those things are more important than any opposite-sex friendship, than a night away from your spouse, etc.

You were given examples of boundaries and EPs people use, and as you and your H (hopefully) recover, you can POJA the boundaries and EPs that are right for your relationship.

The goal is for both spouses to guarantee prevention of a future affair and also for the wayward spouse to offer compensation to the betrayed spouse for all the pain inflicted, which helps ease the BS's resentment.

Consider the circumstances that led to the affair. If a WS met/became reacquainted with an affair partner through social networking, for example, a fitting EP would be to eliminate social networking memberships. Do you follow?

Universally speaking, married people should not have friendships with members of the opposite sex in which they spend time alone or discuss private, personal matters. Those conversations and experiences are generally how affairs begin, even when people have decent intentions to begin with.

My father cheated on my mother. I learned from this and set big boundaries for myself for whenever I got married. You see, I recognize that I could be tempted to cheat under the right circumstances. So I set boundaries when I got married and did my best to abide by them.
I'll give you some examples:
I cut out friends of the opposite sex. The friends that I did have of the opposite sex became friends of the couple and I wouldn't have any conversation with that friend without informing my wife about it or without giving her the option to read the messages if she wanted to. In other words, there was complete openness.
I also recognized that there is no such thing as innocent flirting. Flirting is flirting and it slowly leads towards infidelity. I view flirting with someone else when you're married as a massive show of disrespect towards my spouse. I also wouldn't like it if she did the same and dismissed it as "innocent."
If I found someone attracted I did everything I could to avoid being around them alone. There was a woman in my squadron that I found attractive. I liked everything about her even though she was just slightly about average looking. It was the whole package. She was a pilot like I was. She was smart. She was witty and fun to talk to and hang out with.
I therefore did what I could to never be alone with her. She tagged along with us because she was part of our squadron, but I stayed away from any kind of personal contact with her.
Why? Because I found her attractive. Did she find me attractive? I have no idea. I never innoncently flirted, tried to hit on her, or talked to her outside of the business we were in.
My wayward ex felt differently. she told me she wanted to go study on the base one day when I was supposed to be at work. I got out early and decided to go surprise her. I found her playing video games with some guy she had become friends with. She didn't tell me she was doing this. She told me he was just friends, etc.
At the time, I didn't trust him because I know men. 21 year old guys don't have innocent intentions with married women with kids. There's plenty of other men to hang out with and play video games with. Why my wife?
I expressed my discomfort with this, which was dismissed as being overly jealous.
My ex had no boundaries and "innocently" flirted with men online when I deployed. The "innocent" flirtations led to meetings "to make friends."
Well, it led to cheating.
We're all human and we're all wired to cheat. Recognizing that we're all vulnerable to cheating is the first step in making sure we never do so.
Be friends with a couple, not with one man. When talking to your friends of the opposite sex, do so with your spouse around and tell them how wonderful you think your spouse is or the things you do with your spouse.
Be wary of Facebook. I looked up an ex of mine just out of curiosity. I decided NOT to contact her because nothing good could come out of it.
Was I tempted to? Yes. Did I tell myself that it would be innocent contact to just say a friendly hi? Yes.
Then I thought about whether or not my wife would be ok with the contact. That was an easy one. No.
Then I thought that it wouldn't be good to re-establish contact, no matter how innocent, with someone that I once had strong feelings for.
So I prayed about it. I asked God to help me defeat the temptation.
It worked and I have never contacted that person nor will I do so.
While you have received tons of 2x4s from those of us who have been betrayed, you're also receiving them from folks who recongize how easy it is to go down that path by anyone.
So take that as an example of boundaries.
Want to lose weight? Don't buy twinkies and ding dongs for your house.
Want to stop drinking if you have a problem? Don't buy alcohol.
Want to avoid infidelity? Then treat the opposite sex with care and with boundaries.
You can be professional, kind, and friendly. Just don't cross the line into flirting or personal contact.

Here is what Dr Harley says about boundaries and opposite sex friendships.



And later this:


The whole article is here:
LINK

Both you and your H work together to find EPs that you both are comfortable with. Write them down and keep a copy where you can refresh your memory as needed.


Yes, my insight is...are you KIDDING me??? You had an AFFAIR!!! You are in absolutely no position to be negotiating these things OR telling us you don't need them ~ you most certainly DO!! Your affair happened because your EPs were beyond shoddy. You have very little impulse control and your H is paying the price for your indiscretions.

Your H is in more pain over your A than you can even begin to imagine. The lack of empathy you are showing by even suggesting that you might feel "trapped" if you put EPs in place is shocking.

You need to do whatever it takes to heal this M...to make it safe for your H. That includes putting boundaries in place that would make it IMPOSSIBLE to have another A.

I'm still shocked at your complaints about putting EPs in place would make you feel trapped. Good grief.

So, me being in the position that I am at the moment, in which I do not have feelings for my husband (and he doesn't for me right now, for that matter), I do feel a little hesitant at wanting to give up everything for him. It feels a little bit like I am losing a piece of my identity (if you will). Is this normal feelings? I have always been an independent woman who came and went and did as I pleased (which, I KNOW, is why I am here), so the idea of this seems completely foreign. Also, my next question is, will this "struggle" between my H and I be a life long obstacle or will it ever become second nature??

The best thing for that is....you get to choose

You get to decide whether how long it will take for you to get that love back in your marriage. If your willing to do the work to save this marriage then it can come faster, if your are hesitant and confused, then it will be longer.

Words are easy to use
actions are harder

If you take those actions in your marriage (MB Principles) you will feel a little bit of love each day you work on it. Once it's back you need to maintain it, that is why I love the MB program because it's not just a website to kill affairs it's a program that will build love, trust, and excitement back into your marriage for a life time.

I was a FWW

They are absolutely the feelings of a wayward spouse that is about to throw away everything for nothing.

If that's what you mean by normal, then, yes.

It's crap. Crap, crap, crap.

It's going to be hard. It's going to take years. It's going to take you to knock off the lazy, self-entitled bullcrap, and owning your part in; a) the damage to your marriage, b) the pain you have caused your husband, c) your role in recovering your marriage.

Of course sapphire, I am confused. The other man is ALL I can think about right now and since I have no feelings of love for my husband, but know he is a good man, I am horribly confused. It is the worst thing I have ever been through in my life!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is absolutely normal, and it's a great fork-in-the-road opportunity.

Right now, you're still "foggy" - a term for brains addled by affair hormones, essentially. You forget what it's like to think and act openly, honestly, and with integrity, and you forget (or don't realize) how refreshing and freeing it is to strive for (and, ultimately, achieve) that fall in love, stay in love feeling w/ your BH.

You feel like all of this psychobabble stuff is REAL, that you are this independent woman and you will lose yourself in a marriage such as posters here describe.

When you get out of the fog (it dissipates the longer genuine NC is maintained), you will start to see this as an opportunity. You won't lose yourself - you will gain a partner and a marriage that you and your BH have walked through fire for. You and your BH will create it together - no loss of identity, just the building of something better between you both.

It will be difficult for a while - you both have a lot to overcome, and a lot of retraining in your habits, independent behavior, etc. But that part fades, especially the further along in recovery you get and the more you understand the principles behind the program.

You can choose which direction you go from here. Put the foggy feelings aside and commit to doing the best you can to help your M and your BH overcome your A, or continue serving your foggy, fearful feelings first.

What exactly is your identity right now?

What struggle?

There used to be an article around here about finding yourself. I'll see if I can find it.

I have no frickin' idea what my identity is or what it has ever been. I think that is part of why I am here. I really don't know what my place in the world is or where/what I want to be defined as.

What you can't understand right now (because you aren't practicing it) is that by "giving up" these things and focusing solely on your husband and your M you WILL "fall in love" with him again. Remember how when you were first dating and you only wanted to be with him? That is your goal again ~ when you can both stop annoying/hurting/lovebusting each other and you both begin meeting each other's ENs completely, trust me...you won't miss any of this other "stuff". I know this to be true because we do all the things everyone here is suggesting for you and we are in love.


What if you lost what you "think" your current identity is in order to find the identity of being a very in-love wife, with a very in-love husband? Would that be worth it?


RED FLAG!! Guess how you became an adulterer?


Oh, phew. However the fact that you even mentioned this means you "know it" in your head but you aren't yet willing to make your actions meet this knowledge.


Well, change is always hard, right? The more you practice, the easier it becomes. I know for certain we wouldn't go back to how things used to be because we are much happier now...my H says he is happier than he's ever been in our marriage. Why would we give that up?

Why not start with a faithful, loving wife? One who made a mistake but is more than willing to correct it and be a better person for it?

That would be an awesome identity to have, don't you agree?

STOP looking at ANYTHING ABOUT HIM...anything online, pictures, old emails, ANYTHING.

Stop listening to music that reminds you of him.

You are CHOOSING to think about this OM. This is completely and totally in your control. It's up to you to stop this.

Hi strugglin...

I want to show you something -- I think the similarities may really resonate with you...

One of your posts from tonight:


And my very first post to this forum made July 1, 2005


Today, nearly 6 years after Dday, I am very passionately in love with my husband. I did NOT believe that could ever happen back then. I was so very unsure. It took a leap of faith, and some great words from some very wise people here, but I trusted them that my feelings would follow my actions and chose to work the program with my husband. Strugglin, if you think about it, you've already proven to yourself that your feelings will follow your actions -- look no further than the affair -- look where all your time was invested -- look at your actions towards OM -- What happened? Your feelings followed those actions, yes?

Strugglin, the most important thing I can tell you is this: Staying in your marriage IS the RIGHT thing - NO ONE EVER REGRETS DOING THE RIGHT THING. I sure haven't - not even for a moment.

A genuinely recovered marriage is a wonderful and miraculous thing -- it's priceless, and all you have to do is choose to act to have that. Will you?

Mrs. W

Thank you SOOOO much Mrs. Wondering for that post!!!!

That certainly inspired me, Mrs. W.

::sniff, sniff::

Sure, anytime...

I know you and your husband are working with Steve, but have you considered also doing the online program? I can't say enough good things about the MB Program -- it's a real Godsend and doing it gives you daily access to Dr. Harley [Steve's dad] on the private board, as well as a private MB accountability coach to help you every step of the way...It keeps your actions on course so that feelings of romantic love develop and REMAIN...

Mr. W and I did the Weekend Program back in 2007 -- it is the same as the online program...What I would recommend if you do the online program would be to get a hotel for the weekend -- treat it just like you would if they were still doing the "Weekend Program" -- This makes it a weekend away for the two of you and keeps you focused on what the whole thing is about...

What do you think?

Mrs. W

strugglingaz,

Please consider: This OM of yours ain't all that.

Y'know how I know?

Because (in addition to my cheating on my wife) I was the OM for my OW.

She thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I was all the things she grew to think her husband wasn't: I was attentive, I was witty, I was handsome & athletic, I was sober, I had an exotic-sounding job, I could sing, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Except there was a lil' problem: From the moment I stepped into the emotional-then-physical affair, involving the double-deception (of both her husband & my wife) I was as morally bankrupt as any person has ever become. I was a person who was not worth trusting. I was a nice, dark-haired, urbane, sophisticated, funny, good-looking, charming walking pack of LIES. And no guy who would engage in an affair with another man's wife is any better. As a human being, I wasn't worth a puddle of cold spit when I was in my affair, and neither is your Prince Charming.

Wanna know what an OM can do? How lovely an ema is? How "wonderful" and "stable" your magical Om is?

Go read the thread right now on "Affairs Kill Families".

This is what the sin does to you. It can lead people down a path to no return.

You're in love with a lie, plain and simple. A fantasy. Smoke.

But you could have a real 100% love affair with your precious, H, if you can begin to open your eyes, really work the MB program, and go through the stages of withdrawal to get to the other side.

Your reputation, decency, and self worth is waiting for you on the other side.

Mrs Wondering, I went back and read your posts from the very first day you logged on here and it was SO inspiring to me. It helps to keep me on track when I can read other peoples story, because just as you said, I felt like mine was unique and the real thing. I VERY EASILY want to fall off of the "right" track and being on here helps keep me focused.

Mrs. Wondering, tell me a little bit more about the online program. How long does it take to complete? Do we need to work with Steve weekly plus do this? Also, honestly, how long did it take for you to lose feelings for the OM? Do you still find that you think of him to this day, wonder about the "what ifs"?

Pay very close attention to Mrs. W - she's a heavy hitter who will give you great guidance. Glad to see you on this thread, Mrs. W!

I'm glad my fog-ridden posts have been good for something other than lining a bird-cage!

Here's a funny little tidbit about my old threads -- I can't remember if I've ever told this here or not...One of the people posting on my thread to me was Mr. W - under another name - and I thought that guy was the smartest thing EVER...and I would call Mr. W into the room and say, "Listen to what this guy said, he is so smart!" and I would proceed to read him his very own posts! And he didn't let on that it was him for about a year and a half! Funny isn't it? I was attracted to Mr. W without even knowing that it was Mr. W at a time when I was here screaming that I was NOT attracted to Mr. W!

I agree with you, being here DOES help keep you focused and for a time it even replaces "OM" in a way and as long as it does not do that permanently then that is a good thing and is okay. What you mustn't do is get stuck in this stage though. You must ACT. And I know that isn't easy, but it IS necessary and in the long run you will be oh-so-glad you did. You can't just sit around and wait for some "magic feeling" to overtake you, because that won't happen.

Wanna hear something really sappy sounding -- it happens to me a lot now -- We live in Michigan and it's been pretty snowy here this year which has meant a bunch of nights curled up watching movies -- and I get tearful during these nights a lot -- because they are FUN -- just our little family all cozy and warm -- and I almost threw this away -- I can't believe how blessed I am, strugglin -- I did not deserve the second chance I was given -- I did not deserve one ounce of the grace or mercy that I have been shown -- but I'm so grateful -- I'll never stop being grateful for this beautiful, happy family of ours...It is the best thing in the world...I want that for you too -- and it is within your grasp.

Mrs. W

AWWWW!!!!!! Mrs. W, that is the first time since this affair has been exposed that someone has made me teary eyed. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I am so grateful for you. So, honestly, how do I proceed at this point. Just jump all in with my H and try to go on like nothing happened, try to meet his emotional needs, spend our 20 hours together, what exactly??

The online program -- it's amazing -- you work at your own pace -- The great thing is your coach will guide you -- along with Dr. Harley -- about which parts you should do first...You have access to Dr. Harley and the MB coaches for a LIFETIME...LIFETIME ACCOUNTABILITY...How cool is that?

About Steve, well that's a tough one for me to answer -- I just think he's such a great guy that it's difficult for me to tell you not to coach with him, even though to me the MB Program is complete on it's own -- But listen, if you can afford to do both then that surely is the best, huh? Right now your marriage is on life support, so my feeling is "the more the merrier", but I would ask Steve or one of the MB coaches for their advice where that is concerned.

How long did it take me to lose feelings for OM -- Oh man, it's been such a long time ago that that happened, I truly can't remember exactly...I know that the affair ended in June, last contact in early July [the ugliness of that is detailed in one of my early threads] and by August we took a road trip and listened to His Needs/Her Needs on CD together and that marked a big turning point in our recovery -- I began to feel a real connection with Mr. W again...[and why did I begin to "feel" that way? look at what I was doing...road trip alone with Mr. W - focused on our marriage and what we could do to make it the best it could be...]

Today the only "what ifs" I have are the ones that go like this: "OMG, what if I had thrown away my family? What if our daughter didn't know the kind of life she has now? What if I had ripped her security away from her? What if I didn't get to wake up safe and secure next to Mr. W every morning?" and about a million other "what ifs" associated only with what if I hadn't done the right thing. I'm positive I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be -- absolutely no doubt about it -- for real.

Mrs. W

Very good! I have an individual appt with Steve tomorrow so I will ask him about the online program for us. I would venture to say that we may need a little more coaching to get our feet on the ground before we are turned over to ourselves. Again, I appreciate your willingness and openness with my questions and your advice (which I take as being very caring and heartfelt).

Mrs. W is awesome...truly inspiring, I'm so glad she posted to you! She doesn't pull any punches and as a FWW I'm sure she makes a lot more sense ~ AND ~ you believe her more than you do us, even if we were telling you the same things.

See? We weren't lying...this stuff really works!

(((((strugglin)))))

I'm very glad that you're here. Let us know how tomorrow's appointment with Steve goes, okay?

Mrs. W

Will do! Until then, I shall keep trucking along!

This, struggling, is the consequential mind-state of committing adultery. You know who you are, but you have not behaved like that person.

You have lied, snuck, and betrayed. You have taken part in something that you thought... "I would never do that!!!!"

The consequence of taking that action is the idea of "not knowing who I am." After all, if you knew who you were, you wouldn't have cheated, right?

And then there is the whole BH/OM thing. How could you ever be this person - who you totally are not - and have an affair... if you REALLY loved your husband?

Do you really love your husband? Have you ever really loved him? When is the last time you felt that?

You can't recall that because it is not in-line with the way you are thinking and acting now.

Not to mention, if you committed this horrible act and you WERE in love with your husband, what kind of horrible person does that make you?


But... it's not about being a horrible person. Not from this point forward. From this point forward it can be about being a normal person, an imperfect person. It can be about being a person who made a mistake without first considering the horrors it brought forth, about succumbing to the weakness of selfishness and thoughtlessness.

It can be about owning up to the mistakes and weaknesses that lead to those decisions and preventing those mistakes, protecting those weaknesses, so that you can act with honesty and integrity and live a life that only has this single regret.

If you are expecting things to be easy, if you are expecting people here, or your own BH to be constantly handling you with padded gloves, then sister; buckle up.

The misfortunate fortune of this all, is that if you buckle down and do this right, you will have a better marriage than you ever knew.

MrsWondering ... Just wanted to add my $0.02. Thanks for sharing your insight and story on this thread. I've been having a tough time myself lately and your words gave me a push in the right direction. I will have to go back and read your whole thread and see what other wisdom I can take away from it.

strugglingaz ... You are not unique in your feelings and struggle (as you've seen here). It doesn't get fixed overnight and you get out of it what you put into it. It is not easy and you can lose your way, but if you found your way here and are already talking with the Harleys, you are in good hands - these folks can help to keep you on track. I read your entire thread today and am proud of how your attitude has changed since the beginning. Great job

You bet! Glad I could help some.

strugglin~

How'd it go with Steve today?

Mrs. W

It went great!! Thanks for asking. He had me map out the NC plan and then go through the 4 steps of why, what, validation and then the plan, in which my H and I will go through rather swiftly I hope. He explained in detail about why affairs happen which completely made sense to me. My H and I will meet together with him on Monday to start the recovery process. My husband and I are going on a little getaway Saturday, which I am sure will be a bit awkward, but is a good start. Please say lots of prayers for us as we forge ahead on this path.

I'm so glad to hear it went well! Did you talk to him about doing the Online Program?

The getaway is EXACTLY the thing the two of you need right now -- that is GREAT! I know it will feel awkward at first because [I will keep hammering this part home - lol] your recent actions toward him have not been such that loving feelings would follow -- [actions--->feelings]

Go and enjoy each other -- remember that meeting the four intimate emotional needs is what causes romantic love to develop...

1. Recreational Companionship
2. Affection
3. Intimate Conversation
4. Sexual Fulfillment

Choose to make those a priority on your getaway -- and of course continue when you get home...You will be amazed by what happens if you do this...Remember to be careful to avoid love busters...

How is your husband doing? I'd like to hear what's going on in his world.

Mrs. W

How cool is this! Isn't Marriage Builders great!

Have a lot of fun and build some good memories on your weekend, struggling!

Mrs. Wondering...yesterday went great on our little trip. We talked the entire 5 hours to our destination and back and we both felt like it was very therapeutic. We have our first "together" session with Steve in the morning since the exposure of the affair. I encouraged my husband to get on here and read and/or post and right now he wonders as the betrayed spouse how he will be able to focus on meeting my needs, when truly he is more fixated with how I am going to be able to meet his needs and make him feel secure. Also, at what point do you make a vow to not bring up anymore details of the affair? We have had a great number of hours of honest discussion with no anger issues, but feel like we, once again, don't want to get stuck in this stage.

I'm not Mrs. W, but speaking for your BH, I'd say not to make a vow like that. Your BH needs to feel secure in his ability to ask a question about the A if he needs to. Sometimes he may need to ask that question more than once in order to process that part of the A. When his question has been answered to his satisfaction he can move to the next point in healing.

The time will come when he has had his questions answered. That's when you won't be talking about specific details of the A anymore.

I got my question answered through Steve this morning about closing up the wound. Thanks!

Excellent! Can you tell me what Steve suggested? I don't want to post advice that is counter to what he is advising - I can only suggest based on my own experience. Thanks!

strugglin~

Sorry I didn't see your post earlier, but I'm glad to hear that you got your question answered.

Earlier I asked you how your husband is doing - I don't think you answered my question, but maybe I missed it.

I am very glad to hear that your weekend getaway turned out nicely. That is great news!

Mrs. W

I see you did mention something regarding your husband and his worrying about meeting your needs - duh, sorry I overlooked that. Did he mention that to Steve this morning and if so, what did Steve advise?

Mrs. W

I can tell you that early after the affair Mr. W and I concentrated our efforts on spending as much time together as possible doing FUN things. We were fortunate in that he was able to take lots of time away from the office and we really just recreated our "courtship"...We did all the things that we'd done together back then -- to try and recreate the atmosphere where we originally had fallen in love. That served us very well...

Mrs. W

Weekends away are crucial at this point, I would say. We had so many weekends away early in recovery, I can hardly remember them all! So much bonding can occur during that time.

Do you have kids, struggling? It may be helpful if you put that type of info in your signature line so people don't have to go searching for that.

We couldn't get weekends away but we spent many evenings out with a sitter in early recovery. ITA that it is crucial. IMO I think it is a mistake when people are getting most of their UA time at home when they have little ones...especially in recovery...

Brief threadjack: I've been meaning to say this for a while:

SusieQ, every time I see your name on a post, I clamor to read it -- I think you are a wonderful asset to this board!

Mrs. W

Awww, thanks, Mrs W!! I appreciate that VERY much I feel the same way about you and Mr W. In fact, he was very very helpful to me in my very first thread when I first got here. I have never forgotten it. Thanks again!!!

I very much agree. Early on Mrs. W told me "MF, you guys need to party like rockstars right now!".

We took her advice and it was awesome.

LOL! I did say that, didn't I? I can tell you that we didn't look nearly as "cool" doing it when we were 35 & 37 as we did [or thought we did] at 23 & 25 when we first met! But it worked, and that's what counts, huh?

Mrs. W

Good Grief! This reminds me of a few months ago when DH commented, "I think we're both past the age of striptease. I couldn't be offended because......well, he was right!

I'll say this for myself......When DH and I went through out phase of hysterical bonding, and I was being overwhelmed with real lovin' from a man who knew me inside and out and had made lifelong vows to me.....let's just say that the table scrap crap of the OM became a distant memory REAL fast. When served filet mignon on a regular basis....who wants month old fatty ground beef with worms in it?????

I'm sure we didn't either, we are fairly big dorks anyways.

But who cares? The only ones we were trying to impress were each other, and it worked!

AMEN!

Mrs. W

And another resounding AMEN!

Mrs. W

She is a goodie, ain't she! Sorry, struggling, just wanted to let you know that you've got some very good posters helping you.

Note to self: scratch the meatloaf for dinner idea...

Bliss, buy Laura's Lean brand, you nut!

Mrs. W

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! About the rockstar part! That is awesome! Thanks so much for all of the great advice everyone. This is exactly what I was looking for. Great suggestions and NO ONE loves to go out/have weekends away like me!

What exactly is hysterical bonding? I have seen that mentioned a few other times on other threads. Also, for an earlier question, Steve mentioned that once I sit down with my H and explain everything to him about the FACTS of the affair, no feelings, and he has understood and asked every question that he wanted to, then we close the door and there is no room for the affair to ever be brought up again. Because other wise, actual healing can never occur and his mind just constantly ponders about more questions he can ask.

strugglin~

Can you tell us a bit about your session today with Steve?

Mrs. W

Dr. Harley has written comments on this (http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5062_qa.html).

Those comments suggest that there are contexts in which it should not be brought up, after a certain level of confidence has been established in the information shared about the affair -- a point which Steve has obviously reinforced in your discussion.

However, notice that there's not a specific time limit as such. Based on my & my wife's experience, I would advise you not to think of it in terms of a timeframe. Because that confidence, if/when it arrives, comes in stages, and not all at the same pace from one couple to another.

Your mindset has to be not on "turning a page", but on making sure your husband has the info he feels he needs in order to feel secure.

I compare it to recovering from a tornado. At first, he is likely to want to do a lot of picking through the emotional debris, to see how the house came apart, and what of the past might be salvaged, and to be reassured that there's an intact foundation to rebuild upon. There'll be more than one pickup truckload of junk that needs to be hauled away. It will likely take many months even in a best-case recovery scenario. You can answer all of his questions truthfully & sincerely, and even volunteer other information that goes beyond his questions, and yet it's quite possible that there are additional questions that simply haven't occurred to him yet, which have yet to be addressed. Or it may take him time to mentally "process" the info you've given him, and follow-up questions may occur hours, days or weeks after you discussed something.

That's OK. So you roll with it. Don't expect him to know, all at once, what facts he needs to know. Just be patient with him. Keep in mind that it's not about getting you to a place where you go "Whew, thank goodness we're through that phase & I don't have to revisit the affair or answer any more questions about it." This is about getting him to a place where he can feel safer & more secure.

P.S.--Now, yes, at some point, your husband will need to want to rebuild the structure of your marriage more than he wants to pick through the debris. Not all BSs get there. But that'll have to be a decision that he makes -- you can't make it for him, and you can't force it.

And speaking of this... struggling, will your BH post on here?

Well, as mentioned in the last post I wrote, we are at the second stage of healing for him. He described it as I am the doctor and my H is the patient and Steve is my supervisor. The first step was to do the NC letter and NC plan and show to my H and make sure he understood why the affair took place and that there is nothing my H could have done to prevent it. The second step is just as I told above. We talk to Steve again on Wednesday and then proceed with step 3 which is validation and then step 4 which is our plan (which he hasn't given me instructions on these steps yet). He explains these four necessary steps as ways to "clean out the wound" so that it can scab over and be allowed to heal and never broken open again. Once we get through these 4 necessary steps then I take it that we go through the things that we already know about, such as spending 20+ hours together, meeting needs, etc.

Yes I hope that he will post on here as he has different questions and needs than I do. Should he post through mine or start his own?

Very good...I'm sorry I missed that first post of yours about the session -- I only saw the "rockstar" one...lol...

Did you ask Steve about doing the online program in conjunction with his coaching? I would be interested in what his thoughts were on that...

I just like keeping you here talking about the POSITIVE ACTIONS that you are taking towards your marriage...My hope is to help keep you focused -- You seem to be doing much better these days, am I correct in that assessment?

Mrs. W

Start his own FOR SURE...It is recommended that the two of you stay off of each other's threads...

Mrs. W

Good to see that you've stuck around, strugglingaz.

Now that your hubby is here too, you might want to consider extending him the courtesy of changing the original title of your thread, to something less prone to cause him pain in case he happens to glance over here from time to time.

I thought the same thing, GO -- good call! Strugglin, should you choose to do that, I would bet the time on being able to edit it yourself has expired, so you would just click on the "notify" button of your first post and ask the mods to change the title to whatever you would prefer...

Mrs. W

I haven�t had time to post much at all lately, but this little treasure struck a chord with me.

Why?

Because I could have written this post when I was both wayward and when I first began recovery!

Why?

Because my moral compass was broken too�..

It wasn�t just broken though, oh no, a vandal (my wayward self) had taken it, thrown it to the ground and crushed it under his own two feet��

My identity was now that which I had always loathed, I was an ADULTERER!

It was hard to get a grip on what I wanted to be defined as, when my condition, the condition of my wife, our marriage and our family, were so grave..

Self esteem,,,, HA! I had done nothing esteemable�
Identity,,,, HA! I�d been stripped bare! EVERYONE I knew, KNEW of my adultery� They knew I walked out on my 5 children and my wife.

My moral compass had to be restored. For me, God made this possible! The N needed to point to true North on this one. For me, this meant toward God first, then toward my marriage.

Yes, the consequences of my adultery will forever be before me, there for all to see.
BUT, so will the choices I�ve made since then. And many are watching!

The Just Compensation! The EP�s! Godly Humility! The Character Changes! The Radical Honesty! The Transparency! The Care! The Protection!
These are my choices and these choices are what define the man I am today��

These choices are also what demonstrate my place in the world, the world in which I live�.

The world of my marriage and my family��
I wonder, what else is there that I really want to be remembered for?

PrincessMeggy mentioned this old post earlier, so I thought I'd post it.

My wife printed it out and gave it to me early in recovery. (She was so mean, lol)
Kinda pissed me off (poor me) but has since made me laugh more and more with each passing year.....

I know quite a few places I would like to post that "finding yourself" thing!

Strgglingaz,

Hang in there, you have some wonderful ladies posting to you! Some of the guys aren't so bad either.

In time the fantasy of the OM will be replaced with more realistic, logical thoughts and memories.

I had "RDD" when I arrived here, and so do most waywards I've seen. (Reality Deficit Disorder)

RDD passes with a daily dose of MB Ritalin....

HerPapaBear makes an excellent point, even with the RDD humor. When you are trying to work your way out of the fog, WHO you allow yourself to listen to is extremely important. There are lots of psychobabble voices out there that will minimize adultery and try to shortcut personal responsibility.....but trust me when I say that real repentance and doing the real work brings about real healing and recovery. Anything worth doing is worth doing reight, and that goes double for recovery.

Thanks so much for everyone on here. I can TRULY say that without being on here, I don't know if I would have made the decision to start moving in the right direction. As of today, I have had NC with the OM for a week and it is easy as hell. I FINALLY decided (which was huge, because before I had never made a conscious decision) that there were no options as to what needed to be done. I got the OM out of my mind and started focusing on my husband and his wounds and it wasn't nearly as hard as I had anticipated. Granted, we have a long road ahead of us, but I am feel very positive of what will develop in the next year or two. I look back and it is SO clear to me that I truly was a fog and find it hard to believe that I was ever that person. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that progress is being made in the right direction and I partly owe that to all of you fine individuals.

Okay so Mrs. W, I did what you advised and sent a message to change the title of my post??? I hope I did it right?? Will it change all of them from the beginning or just any from this point forward?

strugglingaz,

I loved reading your comment, I know what that takes for you to self reflect and now on top of being a better woman because of that thinking, you are putting your husband's needs first over your own.......you make it sound easy but I know it isn't. stay strong, the benefits will be so rewarding..............
hugs.........jessi

Love the new title!

The title change will just be on the first post where it can be seen anytime someone is looking at the SAA page...That's where it counts really. Plus, I think the mods would kill you if you asked them to change it on every post!

Mrs. W

This is very encouraging to read, Stugglin...Keep that attitude EVEN on the bad days...Come here for pep talks anytime you need them...

I wanted to talk to you about this being your first conscious choice though...I think that may mean [and I could be wrong] that you felt like things "just happened" where OM was concerned -- that you didn't make conscious choices along the way...If you look back I think you will see that you did make conscious choices throughout [boundary movement/removal] -- a series of very small choices that led to the false feeling that with OM things "just happened naturally" -- Because of all those tiny, almost imperceptible choices, the "big" choice didn't even seem to be a choice at all...but make no mistake, they were choices...Think about that and see if it makes sense to you now, okay?

Mrs. W

But we can change it internally, as i just did, at any time. If people replying can remember to check that the "Re" area above says the new title when they reply, the old title will disappear!

Hurray!

Keep coming here for support and guidance. There are so many great people here to help you!!

You are on the right track, but still have a long road ahead of you.

Keep fighting and growing into the wonderful wife you know you can be!!

That is true! I forgot about that! I can't believe I let silly foreigner beat me at something -- Ah well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day!

Mrs. W

Great new title, and you are right.

Stick around here long enough and you will begin to really see the recovered marriages...you will SEE what you can have if you stay the course.

This stuff really works, I promise!

Mrs. W, actually I don't feel that things "just happened" with the OM because had it not been for me taking all of the first steps, nothing would have ever developed. I made a conscious decision to go see him for the first time. So, I understand completely what you are saying and what went wrong as far as personal boundaries, etc. to cause all of the events to take place.

Live this.

This is a tremendous step!

Yes!

Love the new thread title, BTW.

FEELINGS are ever-changing.
Values & principles, and your personal integrity should become your most important guide. I do not think you ought to trust your feelings as you make "rest of your life" decisions.

Having a good life depends upon doing what you should be doing when you should be doing it.

If you want a really screwed up life, base all your decisions on your wants/desires/feelings, and ignore your values.

You took vows when you got married.
What did your vows promise?
Did you make a promise on your wedding day to live independently and make your own decisions irregardless of how your choices might effect your spouse?


Your struggle is with your personal values.
What are the values you threw away when you gave yourself permission to have an affair?
Self betrayal is at the core of most adultery decisions.

As you begin to develop a deeper understanding of what a "personal boundary" means, I suggest you take a look at the first post on THIS THREAD - Anatomy of Adultery - How it starts .

You will see how easily something that seems so innocent AT FIRST, can go so so wrong.
As you read that first post, think about personal boundaries that would PREVENT the slide downward into adultery.

Excellent, excellent post, Pep!

I was JUST thinking along those lines last night. Because although I absolutely adore Mr. W with all my heart and am very much in love with him -- I'm still human and so is he -- We have days where we don't "feel" super-duper lovey-dovey -- Everybody has those days -- the key is remembering that feelings are TRANSIENT -- AND that you have control over your feelings -- because you have control over your actions...

Choose actions that are in line with your values. And remember that LOVING ACTIONS result in LOVING FEELINGS...

Yesterday it was rainy here -- the night before our power had gone off for 4 hours which interrupted our sleep and we were both tired -- I felt BLAH -- I chose to allow myself to do nothing -- at the end of the day I felt bored and sluggish -- I had no sense of accomplishment at all -- I reminded myself that I had no one to thank for the way I felt but myself -- I had other choices -- I could have made myself be productive, but I chose not to. I chose negative actions [inaction] and my feelings followed exactly what I chose. Surprise!

I vowed to do better today, and I have -- Guess what? I FEEL BETTER...Because today I am choosing to engage in LIFE...To INVEST - To SERVE...Being under invested in life is very often the problem of a WW -- Because it results in BOREDOM and IDLENESS -- neither of which leads to good feelings...

Mrs. W <~~~Off to "invest" in some groceries to make a yummy dinner for our family tonight!

What's up with Pep changing the thread title back, after all we've said?!

I've changed it back again. Nobody is to use the old one ever again, or there'll be trouble!

And you, MrsW! This is the second time this foreigner has got one over on you today!

Don't do it again!

I made the edit on both my posts.
Thanks for catching that!

I see the a big transformation in the OPs thinking here. Makes me sad that my own wife isn't willing to try...but congrats on your on all your revelations

I haven't a clue what you're babbling about!

Mrs. W

*Now I really gotta get outta here! I'm going, I'm going!

WAY TO REGULATE SUGARCANE!! Keep 'em in line girl!!!

Also, laying in bed last night I had a thought. I think Steve (marriage builders, whomever) should host a "couples retreat" or something so that we can put a face with a name and meet all of the people who give good advice. They could hold little seminars just to help enforce the "guidelines" and keep a couple on the right track once a year. I think it would be a great idea! Sorry...totally random, just throwing it out there.

It's called the Marriage Builders Weekend, but I'm too dumb to find a link for you.

I believe the MBW are now extinct....in it's place is the DVD program.

...

That sucks. Bad.

Alas, the in person Marriage Builders Weekend is no more. Prisca and I attended the very last one last year. With travel expenses going up and with the quality of a program that could be offered online, the in person seminars were discontinued. The Weekend we attended had only about twelve couples in attendance. But the one a couple of months before us was sold out! In fact, we wanted to go to that one!

From time to time some Marriage Builders folks have met each other in person. There are even pictures of some of these meetings floating around in various places.

Well. Quite a change of pace from a week ago when you were telling us "The other man is ALL I can think about right now".

I am happy for you & your DH that you've stuck around.

Good as far as it goes. Just make sure you keep going. I want you to be on your guard:

It's for good reason that you'll see people refer to marital recovery as a "roller-coaster." You & your husband may be at, or soon get to, a point where each week is better than the previous week; but it is very unlikely that each day will be better than the previous day. Expect ups & downs in his feelings and in your feelings. If you've read SAA, then you know that being one week into no-contact means you still likely have some withdrawal to get through -- even if your "fog-alert lightbulb" has finally come on.

List your EPs. Keep to them.
List his ENs. Meet them.
Your words over the past 6 days sound better.
But your actions over the next 6 months will matter more.

Can someone touch on the differences between EP's and personal boundaries. I have to make out "my plan" and don't know if one is considered the other or what. Thanks.

This is a particularly good post about EPs that I got from another poster (thank you, HerPapaBear). This will help you get some ideas for extraordinary precautions:

See the section on EPs (about halfway down the page) in Harley's answer to "R.G." here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5065_qa.html

Boundaries are lines (around yourself & around your marriage) that you will defend against intrusion, and lines that you will not cross in your personal conduct. For example, you may maintain a boundary which entails that you will not have, maintain or form friendships with males outside your marriage other than as part of a couple-to-couple friendship where your husband is party to & aware of every interaction.

Extraordinary precautions include specific actions you take to uphold your boundaries (for example, "I will change my e-mail address & cellphone number to make it so that ex-OM cannot readily write, call or text me". Or "If a male business acquaintance asks me about my personal life, I will redirect or end the conversation in such a way that it is clear to him that his inquiry is not one that I consider appropriate or worthy of a response.") However, beyond the mere idea of putting in place & defending proper boundaries, EPs also include specific steps/policies you take or implement in consideration of your spouse to help him feel more secure (for example, ""I will give my husband all of my passwords so that he can reassure himself that I am upholding no-contact").

P.S. -- HerPapaBear was one of my EP gurus; thanks to maritalbliss for reposting his list.

Here's some more from HerPapaBear:

Strugglin~

Please come talk to me -- Let's noodle over what's going through your mind together. Let's talk about "losing your identity" - "giving up your Being", your feelings of "I don't know who I am!" and the like. Let's get down to what that's about, okay? I'd really appreciate the opportunity to try and help you.

Mrs. W

Mrs. W...I don't really know what you mean by "noodle"...but yes, the feeling of losing a piece of myself is in my mind right now. It just hit me last night as someone called and mentioned to me about a concert and it hit me that I may never be able to go to a concert or anything that I love, for that matter, by myself again...and yes, it did bother me. I feel a little bit like I have to give up EVERYTHING that is "me" to try to sustain this marriage. As I have mentioned before, this idea is completely foreign and stops me in my tracks once in a while. Any advice is welcomed!

Struggling, one of the things that made my FWW's affair possible was that she developed a habit of doing things without me - something that I allowed because I once shared the same mindset as you.

What comes in to play is that you build emotions and memories of fun, good times, and good feelings with things and people that don't involve your spouse. This develops independence from your spouse, when the goal of marriage is interdependence.

Why, wouldn't it be great to go to that concert with this friend of yours? Better than hanging around the house with your dowdy husband, correct?

WRONG. It is poison to your marriage and your recovery. Instead, what you should do is focus on doing things that you and your husband enjoy doing together. Then the fun, good time, and good feelings become associated with your husband. It makes deposits into his account in your LB$, and your account in his.

A great deal of affairs begin with independent behaviors, and taking part in recreational activities independently.

Read the whole article here.

Sorry about the term "noodle" - to me it means "think", as in "use your noodle"!

I have an appointment this morning so I don't have the amount of time I'd like to dedicate to this right now, but I will be back later. Until then, think about who it is that you want to "be" -- what are your values -- at the end of your life what would you like people to remember you for? What do you want your children to learn from you?

Is your husband unable to go to concerts with you? That line of thinking - wanting to go alone struck me as odd -- What can you do when your husband is not there that you can't do when he is? Maybe this is hard to believe in your current state -- and I do understand that [withdrawal], but working the MB program will put you in a place that makes your husband FIRST CHOICE when it comes to going to do fun things -- really, it will...My husband is the MOST fun person I know, strugglin ~ no joke - I really do prefer his company to anyone else in the world -- You guys CAN have that too. I pray that you will believe me and throw yourself totally into working this program -- It is VERY worth it...

I'll check in with you later...Hope today finds you in better spirits.

Mrs. W

Struggling, indulge me for a minute while I try to unpack some of this a little...

First, try not to overreact or to make up imaginary obstacles: "Never" be able to go to a concert? Giving up "everything" that is "you"? When & where has anyone suggested this to you? You made this absolute language up on your own.

No one is suggesting that you can "never" do things you like. I & my wife haven't had to give up everything we enjoy. Can there be times when you go to a concert with some girlfriends, without hubby in tow? Sure.

But this early in recovery, ain't the time for that.

In recovering our marriage after my affair, I didn't have to give up playing in my men's baseball leagues. I didn't have to give up going to Home Depot on Saturday mornings to schlepp around the aisles looking at tools & planning home projects. My wife didn't have to give up going to the movies with our kids. She didn't have to give up going out to lunch with her girlfriends. It wasn't by any means an absolute cessation of "everything" that we as individuals had previously enjoyed or found fulfilling or fun.

But did we have to make some changes. We did have to put one another's feelings first & give each other first dibs on one another's time. This was especially true of me, as the one who had the affair. For a few weekends after the affair, I hardly ever wanted to leave the house without my wife. When I did go to the grocery store, or the hardware store, on a Saturday morning, I made sure to tell her in advance exactly where I'd be & when. I carried my cellphone with me & had it "on" so she could reach me if she wanted to. Because during the affair, some of those Saturday morning trips were when I had been gone to be with the OW. I had a special obligation to do things to reassure my wife of my whereabouts. Had news of my affair broken in spring instead of winter, you bet I'd have had to put baseball on the shelf.

And she made changes, too. We started doing things together. Usually, the way it works is, if there are things that one peson likes but the other person hates, you set those aside (in terms of being a "couple" activity); and instead, you pick some things that one person likes that the other person likes or merely can tolerate, and you make the effort to do them together, not because you hope to "get" something out of it, but because you want to give something to your spouse. My wife wasn't a workout maven, but she started spending time downstairs in the gym with me. (Even when she might've been silently imagining that the punching bag down there was me, we worked out, talked, and it was quality time. I have watched more movies with the family. We don't play board games as much as she'd probably like, but I've done some more of that than before (which was never.) We go out to breakfast together on most weekends. I cut back the time I spent at work.

And if there are things you have been doing that were downright harmful to your marriage, then yes, you will have to give those up altogether. If the friends whom you went to concerts with are friends who put down marriage or flirt with guys (and to be clear, I don't know that that's the case, so I am not making that assumption, but am only speaking hypothetically here), then in that case, yes, you would need to cut that out.

Undivided Attention time is the single most important thing that a couple can do to boost the romantic-love factor in a marriage. This is true regardles of whether there's been an affair, but it's especially crucial in recovering from one & in building a marriage that is better than what you had before the affair -- which has to be your & InnerStrength's goal. This doesn't mean that you & hubby have to be joined-at-the-hip for the rest of your lives. It means that you make a genuine effort. And for you, as the person who strayed from the marriage, it means that you have an extra obligation to go the extra mile in these crucial first several months of recovery.

Strugglingaz, I am going to speak directly here (because, hey, after all, if you wanted sugar-coating, you could go on one of those other websites where Other Women get cheered on for "being true to themselves"): Whining about how constrained you feel right now, when you're barely a couple of weeks into no-contact, is not "going the extra mile." It's a manifestation of the same selfishness that led you to transfer your emotional loyalty to a man other than the one you married.

"Noodle" this for awhile & tell us what you come up with.

Mrs W, was your husband ALWAYS the most fun person you know?? Or did you have similar feelings at the beginning of recovery? As you have probably read in his post, this is an area that we have always struggled in as he doesn't enjoy what I like and vice versa...so its not that I am out trying to "do" anything when he's not with, its just that I have had more fun with others. Feel free to expound on this. And I think its important to say...I am not backing down from the program at all, it was just a little bump in the road that we encountered this week.

Very good gloveoil...that was great. Appreciate your directness and I am not trying to be "selfish", I just want you all to address the concerns that come up so that instead of "hoarding" them inside my head, I can get feedback and continue to move in the right direction. Your scenarios were perfect. Thanks!

Mrs. W is out but I thought I'd give you a quick answer.

Yes and no.

I WAS fun but for a period of time in 2005 she didn't think I was "fun" at that time AND she didn't really recall me being all that much fun prior to 2005.

Part of the whole "fog" thing is this little filter in your brain that blocks out, rewrites or just hides good memories of your husband while at the same time highlights, emphasizes and sometimes just makes up bad memories of your husband. It's a cycle whereupon your brain is trying to make sense of and validate your "feelings". Your "feelings" are telling you that your husband isn't right for you and you never got alone, never had "fun", never....so your "processor" is desperately trying to bring your thoughts in line with your feelings.

I know it FEELS real but feelings aren't fact. When you begin to go down that road imagine a STOP SIGN in your head and TRY to just STOP and remind yourself that feelings aren't real and that you're determined for at least a year to follow this MB program and undertake a series of prescribed actions which will hopefully result in a change of feelings.

I don't know if you saw this questionnaire out on the main website: RECREATIONAL ENJOYMENT INVENTORY It may be a starting point of finding a few new activities you BOTH enjoy. But I warn you....your feelings NOW (both of you) are likely going to look at the questionnaire and FEEL negative about it. Things look and feel pretty bleak and perhaps overwhelming right now for both of you so I'd anticipate a lot of negative numbers being circled on the form. Don't panic. Try to just find ONE activity you can pursue TOGETHER this week and go from there. Later on...come back to the form when you two are feeling a little better about the program and each other.

Last thing...It's likely BOTH you and your husband were undertaking independent behavior and these changes MB is prescribing are required of BOTH of you. Your husband is in the same CHANGE boat. You guys are teammates and need to work together to adopt a plan (How to Create Your Own Plan to Restore Love in Your Marriage) He likely has independent activities he'll need to "give up" to a large extent. But this IS NOT to say you'll never go to a concert again in your life or that he doesn't get to play golf ever again. It's possible your spouse won't POJA it with you later on but it's possible that will again ... ya know, when you two are head over heels in love again and dying to see the other happy certain limited independent behaviors MAY be POJA'able. MB is NOT a punishment system...it's just the framework of what the most in-love couples in the world have been doing naturally for years. Who knew?

Mr. Wondering

EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT POSTS!!!!

Try to eliminate absolutes.

In reality, nobody always or never anything.

Again; nobody always or never anything.

You can eliminate this "always" in a very simple manner; if you "always" had trouble having a good time together, how did you ever fall in love enough to decide to marry in the first place?

The funny thing, if you think about it, is that all MB really does, is say "Treat each other like you did when you were dating and you fell in love."

When you were first dating, you blew off friends and other commitments to get more time with your spouse because that time together felt great; you spent that time meeting each others' emotional needs, and it caused you to want to spend more time together.

Trust and complacency, "unconditional love," these are the things that made your love and sense of excitement fade. Not fate, not an act of God, not destiny. Just blissful ignorance that lead to misery.

So...I haven't posted on here for awhile but decided to throw some things out there. It has been 7 weeks since NC and my H and I have been doing weekly counseling sessions with Steve since then. However, I still struggle with thoughts of the OM. As my husband and I got into a discussion last night, it was the affection part that made me so attracted to the OM. I never have been affectionate with my husband or wanted him to be affectionate with me and so when that was accomplished in the affair, I was drawn to that. As my H and I have also noted, we don't feel as if there was ever a time in our M when mutual romantic love was felt and I am just having doubts about all of it once again. I still have no desire for any sex with my H so am still struggling and am still questioning how we can get it all if we never had it even when times were supposedly good!!

First, realize that what you see as affection and what your husband sees as affection may be different things.

Each of you should write a list of things for the other of gestures and/or comments that feel affectionate to you. Put down as many things as you possibly can. That way, as they are integrated there can be some feeling of spontaneity.


Also; not interested in your view of your marital history, nor your husband's people-pleasing way of complying to your foggy rewriting of your marital history. If you are still thinking of the OM, your view of your marital history is tainted and broken. Smoke and mirrors. Dog and pony show. David Blaine.

strugglingaz, welcome back. It sounds like it's been a rough few weeks. I think I know at least partly why.

Here is what I read in your post:

"I still pine for the OM and so never really established NC."

That's it. That's the only thing that matters. The whole rest of your post is fogbabble. Of course you're going to say you never felt "mutual romantic love" for your BH. Of course you're going to say you're having doubts. Of course you're going to say you don't desire your H.

YOU ARE NOT IN "NO CONTACT" YET.

NC is more than just checking the box for physical precautions: no email, no phone calls, etc. NC is closing up and burning the box for mental avenues of contact as well: daydreams, memories, what-if's, the whole shebang. You should not be thinking about the OM at all, and if you are, it should only be in the terms of a scum-sucking sorry excuse for a human being who isn't worth his weight in $&*^. Because that's what you are when you mess around with a married woman.

You have GOT to get the NC thing taken care of. The rest will never happen as long as you are willfully entertaining delightful little thoughts of the OM.

I'll add something practical, (though see the previous note re: NC). You mentioned affection. You and your BH have done the ENQs, right? How did your talk about affection go? Do you know ways in which you would like to receive affection from him? How about ways he would like to receive it from you?

Please, please address the NC issue. You and your BH are all set to head down the road to an amazing marriage, but your failure to guarantee absolute NC is an impassable roadblock.

First of all, your history re-write is quite funny. In time you will see this.


This infuriates me. STOP ALL ONE-WAY CONTACT. If there has been no two-way C, this is what is making you think of OM.

That and your own entitlement/selfishness. Sorry if that stings but this is crazy and you are lucky your H hasn't kicked you to the curb yet. If my H had said this to me even ONCE I would have filed for D.

You are ALLOWING yourself to think of OM. You have NO ONE to blame but yourself and you are making yourself look like a fool by coming here and whining about it. Good grief, it's common sense that you just STOP thinking about him.

Quit the pity party and do what you must to get thoughts of this POS, homewrecking OM out of your head. You are sounding like a big baby with all your talk about pining for him.

Honestly...you have no one to blame but yourself and you are here asking for sympathy??? This is insane. Please stop embarrassing yourself this way and just KNOCK IT OFF.

It's simple. Stop thinking about him.

Hi strugglin~

Glad to see you back here.

I'm gonna take a different tact with you and see if it will help shift your thinking...


My answer to that -- So?

If you were to tell me that you loved OM with all of your little heart and soul, guess what my answer to that would be?

So?

My point is, you already made your choice the day you married your husband. You don't get to choose again.

You have two little ones who count on that being true. Every single ounce of their security and well being rests upon you sticking to the choice you made and doing everything to make your marriage the BEST it can be.

And yes, I agree with the others that you are rewriting history, but okay, I'll go down the "no I'm not" road with you... It doesn't matter. That changes NOTHING. Your made your choice, now go about blooming where you planted yourself.

You've identified affection as one of your top needs. Okay Great! Your husband is capable of meeting that need, and he is capable of meeting it in the way that you like it met -- tell him how. If you allow him to meet your needs you WILL fall madly in love with him. REALLY.

I hear you that you guys are spending time in coaching with Steve -- Are you doing your assignments? How many hours per week are the two of you spending together meeting the 4 intimate emotional needs? Those needs are as follows: Intimate Conversation, Recreational Companionship, Affection and Sexual Fulfillment. Hint: You need to be spending 25-30 hours a week doing those things to fall in love -- once you have fallen in love you will need to spend 15-20 hours per week doing those things to maintain it. YES...ALL of those needs must be being met in order for romantic love to develop -- And YES, that may mean a bit of "fake it til ya make it" in the beginning. Do it anyway. It works if you work it...

Finally, 7 weeks of NC is but a drop in the bucket -- much of what you are talking about will wane in time, but you do need to actively work on controlling where your thoughts dwell...Remember,the grass is greener where you water it -- Stop watering WEEDS...

For now I'll leave you with this:


I look forward to your reply.

Mrs. W

One more thing, watch this video for me please:



Mrs. W

Good job, Mrs. W. I was too busy seeing red to be able to put it as eloquently as you.

Thank ya much, Ma'am, and I understand.

Mrs. W

strugglin~

Lose the facebook account voluntarily -- Do that as a gesture of good will towards your husband -- Heck, do it also as a gesture of good will towards yourself -- facebook for you is the equivalent of dancing in front of temptation and then expecting yourself not to be tempted -- that's a fool's mission -- your commitment must be to remove yourself from temptation's way.

Will you do this?

Mrs. W

Dang, she's good!

Mrs. V, I'm gonna start carrying you around in my pocket because you are so awesome at meeting my admiration EN!

Mrs. W

Any time, Mrs. W!

While you lovely ladies are tossing bouquets to (at?) each other, let me ask you...........

Does anyone else hear crickets?

Struggling, seems like you should press charges against whoever it was that forced you at gunpoint to get married to a man you never had any attraction to.

Yeah, that was sarcasm there. Do you not see the "historical rewrite" you're doing?

And close the FB account already. Quit hedging your bets.

I've noticed that strugglin posts more during the day than at night, NG. I have every confidence that she won't leave us hanging...

strugglin~

You know what was very helpful to me in early recovery? Staying around here and offering anything that I could to BHs fighting to bust up affairs. I would get so mad at their WWs and pretty soon I started to realize that those WWs were just like ME -- and that helped to solidify how horrible what I had done really was, and that helped me change.

Being here and helping kept me focused on marriage and doing the right things in my own life. I learned so much. Another benefit for Mr. W and I was posting and talking about situations together -- Sometimes talking about affairs and the destruction they cause in the 3rd person helped us to apply the solutions we came up with for others to our own marriage. I hope you will consider doing that.

Mrs. W

Yes I am here. Nighttime is reserved for UA time with my H so no I am not generally on here in the evenings. The first thing I would like to say is that if the mind worked as "easily" as you all say, I would be madly in love with my husband...also, I don't feel like I was rewriting history as it is my husbands account of the way things were as well and we have had hours upon hours of conversation about how things have been between us throughout various stages in our marriage. And yes, we have always struggled with the sex/affection side of it. As far as FB, I don't know where that got thrown into this because it has nothing to do with any of this. I don't need to look the OM up to have thoughts of him come up. Also, I run a business through FB so I cannot delete it.

Okay, like I said, even if you are not rewriting history, it doesn't matter -- Romantic love CAN be built. It takes time. You have already made your choice, strugglin -- you are married and you have children. The right thing is to remain married and work the program. No one ever regrets doing the right thing.

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

I have an appointment this morning, but I'll be back later. I hope you will give all of what I've said careful consideration -- I look forward to reading more of your thoughts.

Mrs. W

Well, if you've always struggled with sex/affection, then you certainly wouldn't be in love with your husband. You must be misunderstanding what folks are saying about it. Perhaps you should dig a little deeper and make sure you are understanding correctly.


My dear struggling, you can do anything you put your mind to. God did not write a message on your forehead that says "strugginginaz must run a business on Facebook." There are lots of other options including not running a business, running a business but not running it through Facebook, etc.

I never accept it when my little children here tell me they can't do something that needs to be done. I don't think you should be that way, either.

Okay, if you and your husband [InnerStrength] decide that you must continue to use facebook, then offer to put a keylogger on your computer and let the reports be sent to him. This will prevent you from being tempted to look up OM and will give your husband peace of mind.

How's that sound?

Mrs. W

P.S. Yikes I'm gonna be late! Back in a bit!

1) "Poor me, life is hard, I have to work to make my life happy for an extended period of time!

2) You are both rewriting your marital history. His compliance with your rewrite is not an indication that you are right, it's an indication that he is just as miserable as you right now.

Remember, memories are not really like photographs, or VHS tapes. Your mind recalls them based on the information you have NOW. If part of the information you have now is being miserable, and you are remembering your marriage? Then your marriage was miserable.

Fantastic suggestion! I don't buy the "I have a business on FB" baloney since billions of businesses were run looooong before FB was around but I digress....

Anyhow,this is a good compromise. You should offer to do this TODAY. This will also help keep you accountable.

Put a keylogger on EVERY computer you have access to. This is a very honorable thing to do at this point in your recovery.

Mrs W is so right!!! (add me to your fan club, Mrs W!!!) I realized this myself recently - I'd just posted a few weeks ago that I needed to stay off the forums because I felt more depressed when I read here...but I realized that I NEED this place. It's one place I feel like maybe I can help people and I gain insight and knowledge that even if it doesn't help to restore my M, it will help me become a better human being, woman, and mother.

strugglin, I know you sit here thinking that you can't fall in love with your H but you can. You both have to work at meeting each other's ENs...and if SF and affection are where you have problems, then sit down together and brainstorm how each of you want that need met. There will be something that resonates with you (and him) that will deposit the maximum amount of love units in your LB$'s!

Ever read the Five Love Languages? Maybe your BH's love language is acts of service. To him, you doing something for him is what fills his need for affection - it could be cooking a meal for him, washing his car, working together to plant a garden...you get the idea. For you, maybe it's words of admiration - you light up when your BH tells you how beautiful you are, or that he's proud of you for XYZ...

We're all different in how we rank those 10 EN's, and we're all different in how we want to have them filled. If you're doing the right things, your LB$ will go up and you will feel romantic love for your H - I promise!

Are you going to do this, strugglin? I would appreciate a Y/N answer.

Because 7 weeks of NC and to still be this infatuated with OM is just off. Something is keeping you triggered. I truly hope there is no one-way C going on...

This is inaccurate, struggling.

You had contact and set back your R when you looked up OM a few weeks ago.

Yes, I would completely do the keylogger thing on my computer. No problem with that at all...and I don't know how after 7 weeks time you are just supposed to forget someone who you had feelings for. I have read people on here that six months out still think about the other person. Also, I don't know how we are going to meet in the middle with affection. His idea of affection to meet his need is me giving him passionate kisses, touching, etc. which I don't like. Also, the sex thing completely throws me off because I am not comfortable right now having a long drawn out love making session. I don't feel it and I don't like it. So how do you continue with that?

Also, I don't understand why people have such strong opposition against FB when you truly don't know what my business is or how/when/why it is run. People are so damn quick to judge and present their ideas as the ONLY solution, which infuriates me. I believe that to every problem, there are several solutions and the same one doesn't work for everyone.

I am not comfortable right now having a long drawn out love making session. I don't feel it and I don't like it. So how do you continue with that?

Obviously YOU continue just as you are, since you've made up you mind that you're comfortable living with your husband, and getting "damp" dreaming of your fantasy man.

The question then goes to your BH as to whether a permanently sexless, loveless marriage has any attractions for him. Shall I dash over to his thread and ask him exactly that? Or would you find the grace and courage to put that proposition to him.

Its not like he doesn't know it...we have talked about it in depth together as two adults! I know for a fact, he is not comfortable in the bedroom either!

You either value your marriage, or you don't.

Run a business? Ever heard of Best Practices? Well, they apply to marriages, too.

What you are being advised in, is a Best Practice which has been confirmed over thousands of cases over the last decade.

Is it the ONLY solution? No, and that is your defensive assertion, not what is being implied.

It is the BEST solution, because it protects the marriage from temptation and invaders.

So, continue on. Play with fire, you relinquish the right to say "But, but, but... NOBODY TOLD ME!!!" when you get burned.

Considering the position and attitude of his wife, you are absolutely right he's not comfortable. I would have no interest in sleeping with a woman who was busy pining for another man either.

So, other than searching him on FB and looking at photos, what other forms of contact, what other mementos are you hiding to keep pining for douchenozzle?

We can debate all day on chicken/egg cause-and-effect stories here, but as an adult male, I would happily point out that most of us considering having "relations" with a woman whose stated thoughts are

• I don't enjoy doing this.
• I do not love you.
• I do love another man.

might (Easy, guys: I said MIGHT!) be somewhat less imbued with conjugal ardor than in other circumstances.

But this isn't about SF, entirely, I realize that. This entire issue is your accepting (advocating?) a life nominally together that is so much less fulfilling than it could be. I seriously cannot generate the anger with you I would have imagined would have been my visceral reaction.

It's just so very sad that you've "settled" so cheaply.......

When you are using FB as a vehicle to look up OM which is incredibly cruel to your H and jeopardizes your R....

of course we are going to recommend you get rid of it.

Good grief!

Well, friends, if I was in love with my H, we wouldn't be in this position, now would we...of course we don't feel love for each other or enjoy sexual encounters with each other. We wouldn't need marriage counseling if we did!!!! Are you kidding?

Also, everyone points out that you are supposed to be completely honest and open with your spouse and feelings at all times, and when I tell him what my thoughts are, you all say it is completely absurd. What exactly is the right path? I am learning quickly to just keep my mouth shut, don't say a word about anything to anyone and keep on in my world.

If you weren't prowling FB looking at pictures of your Affair Partner, maybe you could fall back in love with your husband.

Then maybe you wouldn't have to defend your miserable, abusive behavior, would you?

Whining about how you miss OM is not being "open and honest". It is plain cruel to your poor BH and it is fueling your infatuation. Please stop this!

Posting from my hair appt, so this will be brief...

strugglin -- feelings follow actions. You must act in ways that are loving towards your husband if you wish to have loving feelings.

Look no further that where your feelings currently are for proof -- You looked up OM on facebook and your feelings have followed that action.

About there being no other way -- well first, that reminds me very much of my old post here defensively telling everyone "there's more than one way to skin a cat" -- What I learned was this, the fastest horse doesn't always win, but it is the safest bet -- MB is the fastest horse.

Gotta run -- my hair needs rinsing!

Mrs. W

I THINK you missed the major thrust of my last post.

Your children are young, not yet teenagers. Most of us grey-hairs have had a conversation with them along these lines:

(NOTE: I'M NOT SUGGESTING YOU ARE AS IMMATURE AS THE TYPICAL TEENAGER. I'M JUST LOOKING FOR AN EASY ANALOGY.)

Dad: What do you mean you're not going to do your homework?
T/A: It's a waste of time, I don't "get" math.
Dad: But doing your homework is the way to "get" math.
T/A: It's too late, I didn't "get" last week's stuff, which I need to learn this week's.
Dad: So get out last week's homework, so we can see what you didn't understand.
T/A: I didn't do last week's homework......
Dad: ...because you don't "get" math.
(Dad then pours himself a bourbon.)

You think "love" is a fixed item, like a rock. You don't have a "rock" for your husband. Evidently, (trusting you) you never did.

"Love" is a plant, like a daisy. You don't stumble across "love" like you would a rock. You plant it, nurture it and grow it, like you would a plant. You (or anyway, we) grow our "daisies" for our spouses.

(Cue Bette Midler's "The Rose")

You and your BH might NEVER make it as a couple - I can't know that. What I can tell you is you MIGHT make it as a couple. What I can also tell you is that your fantasies about OM have the effect of digging up the seed and throwing it away, with every OM-daydream.

POJA works in EVERY situation. That is the whole point and the point you are missing.

The default to POJA is if you cannot come up with a solution that is enthusiastically agreed upon by BOTH spouses, you do NOTHING.

That means no FB until a POJA agreement can be made where you BOTH are enthusiastic. If you are going to work the MB program, work it, don't half-*ss it.

QFT. You are MAKING your H dislike affection and SF with you and one day you are going to get your wish...that he no longer even desires it.

Quit telling him these things. This is not helping your M or recovery. And don't use the O&H or PORH cr*p either. Dr. H is very clear that PORH and O&H is NEVER to be used to hurt your spouse.

He says if you know it's going to hurt your spouse then keep your mouth shut. Simple, we tell our kids the same things. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Also QFT.

strugglin, I hope you are someday able to go back to your posts here and see the callousness and cruelty you are displaying towards your BH in the things you are saying.

And I hope that day is soon because your H deserves better than this and so do you.

Feelings follow actions...begin ACTING like you are in love with your H and soon you will FEEL it. Arguing with us isn't going to change the minds of those of us who have DONE this and it's proven to work. We are in love with our spouses.

Oh, strugglingaz, people post - and post so emphatically - because they care about you and your BH, and about your marriage, and about teaching from their own harsh experiences.

Posters here have been exactly where you find yourself, and others have been exactly where your BH finds himself. People are walking the road to recovery, (personal and/or marital), and see you miring yourself down before you've even stepped on the path.

Your recent posts remind me so much of myself when I was still wayward. I was so thoroughly convinced that I just wanted to be alone, I wasn't feeling "in luuuuuuurve" w/ my BH and I was just all-around depressed and miserable and convinced that my life as it currently was was ... was just not making me happy. And I cast about, not knowing how to make it better, was wildly moody (thanks to the affair highs and withdrawal lows), and was an awful, awful woman to my BH. And the whole time? I was cheating. I was the root cause of all of my problems. I just didn't (want to) see it.

It wasn't until NC was established that things started to improve. The LB$ balance for the AP drops, (or at least stops receiving deposits), and the LB$ balance for your BH is given a chance to rise.

Like Mrs. W said, feelings follow actions. Instead of being defensive, please try and see what the posters here are really getting it. This stuff is that important. Be receptive. Be humble. Commit yourself to just one day of redirecting your thoughts of OM -- think of a STOP sign, think of raping a marriage, whatever you need to do to nip that warm, fuzzy memory in the bud. Think warm, fuzzy thoughts of your BH -- good memories, or admirable qualities that others have mentioned, whatever raises him in your esteem. Then make it 2 days. Then a week. Etc.

All right, I'm starting to ramble. Please keep posting!

I don't understand why you think this is the only business you can run.

There are literally thousands of different businesses you could be running. Or you could not run one.

Can you quantify how much money you would lose if you took this business off of Facebook? I realize you might not want to reveal the exact number. But do you even know what the number is? Will you share it with your husband, please?

How many digits are in it?

Do you think you will be "comfortable" having sex with another man?

Do you see that you will be carrying the same baggage into any new relationship?

DO you see that as soon as the chemical rush dies out with the scumbag you will be in the same boat you are now?

Struggling,

If I may, thought I'd add my .02 as your frustration and defensiveness seems to reflect a very common theme here for some initially. Just some food for thought.

MB forums are broken into topics so that people seeking help can post and gain feedback in an organized manner. The result of that, though, is that in any one forum there is a remarkable (frankly shocking) pattern that repeats from couple to couple, over, and over, and over again. I've been reading here since late 2008, and I can tell you that I am hard pressed to think of ONE situation that is unique. Sure, the circumstances and nuances all differ (kids, country, ages, etc.), but that's just the 100 foot view. The 5000 foot view is just not.

(Please don't be insulted...just an analogy.) Think of it as math, and the majority of people here that know MB are math majors. 2 + 2 = 4. So, when these math majors hear things like �but, MY 2 is different!� or �MY 2 is blue, not yellow!�, it brings the majors to respond that the equation still applies. Pick a 2, any 2. SAHM, H,W, WW, WH, fat, thin, bald, blonde, financially secure, paycheck-to-paycheck...all 2s.

THAT is the MB concept as I sees it, and so that is the counsel direction you are going to get. Sure, details are important to help devise a plan, but the plan doesn't change. Where you are are which element of the plan is lacking (or working) is what will be addressed.

HHH addressed a poster recently, and when I read what he wrote I literally laughed. Not at the poster, but because the poster was coming back with (as my dad used to say) �yeah-buts�. I will paraphrase HHH basically said �Stop with the friggin word-for-word replay of each hour of each day, already. Develop new skills.�

So, there you have my input; take it for what it's worth. Develop new skills...or don't. Choose to do this...or don't. I just think your �questions� aren't followed by a lot of question marks. 5000 foot view.

Do you guys remember how when she first started posting here she claimed the affair was over and how she wasn't having any contact whatsoever? Yet, the more we posted, the more she revealed that in fact she was in contact with OM?

I think she is in contact with OM. After my wife went genuine NC she started to be attracted to me again, was desirous of my company, was affectionate, etc. The only reason I think she isn't is because somehow she is still in contact with him.. or has started a new infatuation with another man.

It doesn't take much to know something is fishy. The last ditch addiction she is holding on to is FB. She can look at pictures, maybe send a pm, etc without her husband knowing about it.

struggling - you may refuse to believe what anyone is saying about falling back in love with your BH, but FWIW, here's my $.02 (again???):

An Observation for New and Lurking WWs

Work the program. Work on managing your mind and thoughts of the OM. This program does work, if both spouses participate. Wholeheartedly...not halfazz.

And this is coming from someone who doesn't even have a restored M. But I still believe this program can work.

I don't know what the deal is with FB anyway. No love lost between me and FB. I'm sure if I was determined enough, and wanted to protect my BH, I could find another way to run my business. Etsy, ebay, craigslist, build my own website...maybe you could come up with another viable option.

You have to cut off ties to OM (all of it--meaning electronic access)... The withdrawal will die...

ITA, CAG. That wasn't what I meant about "what's the deal with FB" - I guess I wasn't real clear - just me personally, I am so freaking sick of FB...I hate it. Huge timewaster, and look how many divorces FB has contributed to! I'm just sayin', we lived without FB for years and years...the loss of it would not be a great loss, IMHO. But then FB was one of the factors present in my A, so I am sorta biased against it, and I cringe whenever I see new WW's who want to keep their FB pages...

Few posts back I think Mrs. W was suggesting a keylogger, which would alert struggling's BH to any electronic searching for the OM's name, whether Google or FB. But I still think the best thing would be eliminate FB entirely and find another option for the online business. They are called Extraordinary Precautions for a reason.

I agree with you entirely. What's the goal? To eliminate the temptation to slip up, or to leave temptation in place under surveillance so that she can be caught red handed when she does slip up?

Seems like the former would be more conducive to recovery.

This OM of yours is a guy who, figuratively-speaking, sucker-punched your husband in the kidneys, dropped a knee onto his back & broke his ribs while he was down, slammed his face into the dirty pavement about 20 times until he was, emotionally-speaking, lying there in a pool of blood & broken teeth, then picked his pocket, gave him one last kick in the ribs for good measure, and walked away chuckling & satisfied with what he'd done & what he'd gotten away with.

I wouldn't be able to forget a man thug like him, either.

My question is, how have you convinced yourself that there's anything good in a guy like that?

Read my wife's story of our D-Day. Read how she says that the pain of infidelity is at least equal to the pain which parents feel when losing a child. (BTW, my wife has worked for over 2 decades in neonatal intensive care units, so she's not just making stuff up. She's seen the sobbing parents & wept with them.)

Like losing a child. But you don't even feel your husband's pain because you're so absorbed in yourself.

Set your bar higher, Struggling. Lordy, you've got 2 daughters whom you teach by your actions. Who do you want them to become?

He makes a very good point.

struggling, it's a new day...how are you going to choose to face it?

By posting brief rebuttals (in an attempt to save face or get her way or be right or stick it to her BH again?) on her BH's thread instead of owning up to her actions here, where people are trying to help her.

struggling, please, your BH and you need to stick to your own threads. Especially at this juncture, you guys will only find lovebusters and inflammatory remarks coming much more easily where you should instead be focusing on advice for how to fix you, individually, so the marriage as a whole has a chance.

Hi Strugglingaz,

I'm not a vet on this site, but it seems like you are more worried about meeting your DH's needs and you haven't even considered the fact that he isn't meeting your needs. You aren't going to want to meet his needs if he isn't meeting yours.

What are your most important emotional needs? Have you completed the ENQ? Do you like certain kinds of affection? What kinds of affection do you like? Do you like holding hands? Or, maybe you prefer to receive gifts? Or, maybe you could use some help around the house? Just tell your H what needs you need met and I'm sure your H would do that. Once he is meeting YOUR needs, you may feel more interested in meeting his needs.

Regarding the sex, you are not going to be interested in sex until your most important needs are met the way you need them met. Once your needs are met, you will be more interested in sex with your DH.

I can see that you are trying. Try to be patient with yourself and allow some time for the fog to lift. Once the fog is gone, you will be more receptive to your DH. Just do your best to avoid triggers (FB pictures, texts from OM, etc.) and be patient with yourself.

Good luck to you both.

Yes, so I will stick to my own thread, but will not post any further on here. It does me no good, as my questions do not get answered, rather people jump to assumptions thinking I look the OM up on FB constantly or am having a secret second life or whatever else comes up because I admitted that I still think about him. I feel like I am married to my H and ten thousand other people who want to point fingers. I know that this is extremely difficult for my BH, but its not a frickin' cake walk for me either and the emotional roller coaster I am experiencing.

Interesting, I don't believe you answered my questions, either.

Do you own the book Surviving an Affair? Have you read it?


I don't believe anybody has said it was.

Have you considered contacting Dr. Harley and his wife for help? They answer questions free of charge on their radio show, and they send you a free book, as well.

Yes, I own that book and I have read it.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I regret if my comment made you feel that I was pointing figers at you. That was not my intent. I was only trying to help you get to where you want to be...in love with your DH.

Good luck to you Strugglingaz. I hope you find what you are looking for.

No, hurtagain, actually you are one of the very few who seemed very sincere in your statement. Thank you for that.

struggling, markos is right. Nobody ever said this was a cakewalk for you - that is your prematurely defensive assumption. And you have ignored answers to your few questions in favor of similar defensive posturing - which has gotten you exactly where you are now: pretty much stuck.

Yet there is a wealth of information, countless personal experiences, and many, many posters willing to help. Instead of wasting time and energy and emotional resources being so defensive, why not stop and think about what everyone is trying to get across to you?


PS - I apologize for my previous post. If you genuinely need to correct facts, that's fine. It should really just be done on your thread. You and your BH should not even read each other's threads right now - just focus on your side of the fence for a while, I think that's key.

Question: Have you looked OM up on FB since NC was established, even once? Yes or no?

If you want to stay married to that man, you might want to start listening to those "ten thousand other people" who are trying to help you.


Do you realize that some of those who are supposedly pointing fingers are FWW? It was no cake walk for them, either, hon.

You are being pointed down the quickest road to recovery. Seriously consider taking it.

struggling, I for one am not here to point fingers at you. I - and the others who are posting on your thread - are trying to help you.

I have stood where you are standing. I did so many things that screwed up my chances at recovering my M after my A. I was impatient and selfish; and controlling my taker was very difficult at times. I know it's not a cake walk - it has not been a cake walk for me either. It's still no cakewalk, and it has been twenty months since my A ended.

But you have to realize, your BH is the wounded one here. He's a trauma patient, and he's bleeding out. You can't slap a bandaid on it and tell him to get up, already. Yes, you may very well have had problems in your M pre-A. My own M, pre-A, wasn't a fairytale either...BUT you have to start with the immediate issue here and that is tending to your BH's wounds. What you are doing by staying on FB (whether or not you're looking at the OM, I'm not even addressing that, it's already been addresses) is kicking him while he is laying on the ground, bleeding. My A started on FB, and my H was triggered every time he sees a link to FB on another website or hears it on TV/radio.

I know R is not easy. But you have a BH who is willing to give it a shot. Are you going to stand in the flames with him?

Hey now, little missy I take offense to this, because I specifically took my laptop with me to my hair appt yesterday to read and post to YOU -- and I know I was brief, but I did try -- I care about YOU -- ***I*** have been on that roller coaster and I know how to get off of it -- I want to help you with that -- I wish I could earn your trust, so that I could help you -- How could I go about doing that, strugglin?

Mrs. W

Wow. At the risk of being repetitive, it don't get much better than that. I don't think you care about anything else that I say, strugglingaz, but care about this:

I'll be the bad guy.


Posted by YOUR BH, on 4/3/11.

You are looking up the OM on FB, and texting another man?

Let me tell you something, with this behavior, you should really reread the title of your own thread.

Here's the thing, if you were my FWW, my only response to this action would be "Honey, grab your ankles, and kiss your azz goodbye, cause you're GONE."

How much more abuse are you going to dish out?

By the way, you aren't married to any of us, you are right. So what?

You want to save your marriage? Keep your family intact? Then drop the fog-tude, pull your head out of your tush, sit down, shut up, and listen; YOU are wrecking your own life with this foggy bullcrap.

KNOCK IT OFF.

I see you answered one of the two questions I asked in that post. I still don't see answers to my questions in earlier posts.

I call BS on this entire post.

What Q was not answered or addressed? Please be specific.

What assumption was made? Please quote the assumption.

Nobody said you look at OM on FB CONSTANTLY. Only looking at his profile ONCE will reset your w/d clock back to Day 1.

The victim card won't work here, strugglin. Your poor BH is the victim...NOT YOU.

You tried telling us that you have been in NC for 7 weeks. You are going to get called out on that because you BROKE NC when you looked up the OM on FB and set your R back.

That is why you are still thinking about the OM...to answer your Q since you still don't seem to GET it.

We want your M to succeed but you are too fogged out to see it. We will be here to HELP you (with 2x4s if need be!) when you are ready for it.

Good luck!

Wow, Struggling.

You've got all these people bending over backwards to try and help you, and you've got all these words to say and blah blah blah and this is hard and nobody understands, blah blah blah.

You made contact with OM, and your recovery has been set back to day 1. Any fog that was lifting, has reformed right over your little wayward head.

Basically everything else is moot until you STOP making contact with OM and accept that contacting him is influencing how you feel about your BH.

You should be glad everyone is taking the time to post to you, despite your ludicrous and bizarrely insistent claim that FBing him isn't really "making contact." Until that contact ends, you're wasting everyone's time.

Oh, good. Your post came right after mine and I thought I sent you right over the edge. lol

I know you are getting a lot of 2x4's right now and I hope that doesn't keep you from using this discussion board as support. Although we may not know you, we are here for you and care about you because we are all in the same boat.

I have just recently read through your thread and I think you have a good chance of recovering the love for your DH. I think you may just be putting too much pressure on yourself to immediately stop thinking about OM. This may, in turn, be causing you to resist and feel pressured as a woman. As a feminist, I understand. You shouldn't try not to think of marriage as a him vs her, but as a partnership.

Reading your thoughts reminds me of my WH, who is trying so hard to recover our marriage. He has told me that he thinks about the OW and he feels so bad about that. This is very painful for me, but I understand that he doesn't have control over his thoughts and I have told him that.

Anyway, I think you should just focus on the basics...emotional needs and keeping NC (all NC including texts, FB, etc.). Your emotional needs aren't being met the way you like them met. Maybe you aren't being honest with your H or maybe you aren't being honest with yourself, regardless, this is about YOUR needs. That's all there is to it. Tell your H how to meet your needs. That's all.

Good Luck.

I never thought I'd look forward to those damn crickets. They do, on balance, sound better than some things I've read here.

(Angel: NG, you never even let me try to.......)

CLANGGGG!

(Devil: Sorry, boss, someone hadda do it1)

hurtagain, I'm sure your intentions are good, and strugglingaz responded well to your previous post - you got through, which is great! However, this statement is utterly erroneous. We all have control over our thoughts, and it is absolutely imperative, in the wake of infidelity, that the wayward spouse's thoughts are marshaled firmly AWAY from the affair partner. If a thought pops into your head, you control it -- you don't indulge in the fantasy, as waywards are wont to do.



This statement also bothers me, and here's why: while technically correct, it is license for a wayward spouse to up their entitlement, and for the wayward's greedy Taker to demand more and give even less. It's not pretty, but it's just how it is.

Now, if strugglingaz and her BH can sit down with humble, open hearts, and have a safe, honest discussion about EN-meeting and how they prefer it, and if they BOTH attempt to enact EN-meeting in ways pleasing to their partner, THEN we may start to see some progress.

Until they do that, until strugglingaz stops resisting any and all suggestions to help her recover her M from HER infidelity, then telling a WW to focus on getting HER needs met is a recipe for disaster. It will wear down the BH until he has no love left for her, and the WW's Taker and entitlement will spiral even further out of control. IMVHO.

The idea about putting too much pressure on herself is an interesting one, and I think many of the truly repentant FWS's on here can relate to that. strugglingaz, do you identify w/ this at all?

Hurtagain, you misunderstand. I would encourage you to please reconsider your above line of advice in view of MarriageBuilders concepts -- especially the concept that developing, cultivating, and rebuilding romantic love is not merely or even mostly about feelings, but very much about actions.

Bear with me for a mo' while I try to explain:

Strugglingaz, as well as your own WH, may not be able to avoid having thoughts of their affair-partners pop into their minds. As a FWH myself, I certainly understand & empathize with that. However, they do most certainly have it in their power to control how they react & respond to those thoughts.

I heartily suggest that you read a thread titled "Managing memories and dealing w/triggers" (http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2243454&page=1) by a poster named Mark1952. It is one of the most enlightening posts I have seen, and it was a huge help to me personally. Strugglinaz needs to read it -- and not just read it, but practice it. Maybe you & your husband should give it a look, too.

Mark1952's post cites an additional link here (which may have been one of his sources):
http://www.drjoecarver.com/clients/49355/File/Emotional%20Memory.html

I have trained my mind so that whenever I think of my ex-OW, I am able to very quickly think of how deviously she deceived my wife... how completely she disregarded & disconsidered the very humanity of my wife, who was my first lover & the mother of my children... how at the very end, OW actually tried very directly to break up my family. [That's not to minimize my own role in my affair one iota; but fond thoughts of myself were only a minor danger to my marriage compared to fond thoughts of OW.]

Strugglinaz needs to be doing the same. She needs to practice the discipline of active & reactive memory-management, so that when she thinks of her OM(s), she thinks immediately of the thug whom I figuratively described in my previous post on this thread. Or something similarly sinister and pernicious.

If she does this, she should feel revulsion and, if she has a conscience, remorse & a desire to make amends, which should help lead her to positive actions toward her husband -- which in turn will feed a virtuous circle of need-meeting on both of their parts.

Well of course her husband can't fully meet her needs right now. For one, she is still allowing her thoughts of OM to be positive thoughts. Instead of tossing those thoughts out of her emotional-needs "glass" like the poison they are, she allows them to sit in there, so that when her H tries to meet her needs, his deposits can't fill up her emotional "glass" -- because the "glass" already has other junk in it. Besides, since she is failing at the Rule of Protection, by not fully implementing EPs, he is very scared of allowing himself to be either emotionally vulnerable to her or confident around her. In short, she is not allowing him the latitude & safe space he needs in order to best meet her needs.

She can change this equation, but it requires action on her part: Action to get honest & implement EPs to the very best of her ability, and action to practice the thought-management discipline I described above so that it becomes a positive & edifying habit.

"Luck" hasn't much to do with marital recovery, hurtagain. It's not about feelings -- and please don't take this personally (because I know you are fairly new around here) -- but it is poor & counterproductive advice to suggest to a truly struggling wayward spouse that she has no control over her feelings, as if that's what's most important. What's most important is that we do have control over how we choose to react to our feelings. And we need to not just sit there & hope that our feelings will improve; rather, we (as wayward spouses) need to exercise the control that we do have.

I will add that a Plan A is meeting a WS's ENs, and meeting them well. There is merit in that, hurtagain, you're right, in that it increases the BS's deposits in the WS's LB$.

I just get verrrrrry wary around talk that can be interpreted as a WS demanding unilateral increased EN-meeting.

Mrs V, I started before you, but I'm too wordy, so you beat me to the finish. Great post.

You beat me to the link - required reading, IMHO.

Thank you, and same to you. We can all combine our collective MB muscles, and maybe something will get through...

Great posts, Gloveoil, MrsW and MrsVanilla. Strugglinginaz, you are getting great advice here from the some of the best and I hope you listen. Entertaining negative thoughts about a pig pen affair is going to avail you nothing. Train your mind to re-focus on recovery of your marriage. Even talking about that smut will keep you triggered, so I would avoid that all costs.

Rather, I would keep your focus on tending the wounds of your victim and creating a romantic relationship with him. Building a great marriage with your H will replace any residual pig pen fantasies, I assure you. That is - IF - you are not looking him up on facebook or other places and keeping yourself triggered. EVery time you look up the scumbum on FB puts you back to Day 1 of withdrawal.

Thanks Mrs Vanilla and Glove Oil,

I agree with everything you said. I guess I'm just not good at getting my thoughts across in writing yet.

I did not intend to imply that she shouldn't meet her DH's needs, only that she needs to tell him how to meet her needs. Once her needs are met the way she needs them met, she will be more interested in meeting his needs. I had noticed that she seemed more focused on meeting his needs, but not at all concerned about getting her own needs met by him. This is something that can easily be adjusted.

My comment about thinking about the AP was also not clear and I apologize for that. I only meant that I don't think she (and my H) can control when those thoughts pop into their head. However, I agree that once the thought pops into their head, they can control what they do with those thoughts.

Like you said, I'm new here and I guess I need to get better at being clearer with my thoughts. Thanks for clarifying. Thats the nice thing about this board, if one person can't get the idea across, we can all work together to get it out there.

Bumping because I'm sure strugglingaz had a great, productive, UA-filled weekend w/ her BH, and we're dying to hear all about it!

Who wants to bet she is still in C?

One way, two way...who cares. Contact is contact.

I have been thinking the same thing, MF...

Strugglin,

Are you still at least reading what is being written? I know you said you were going to, but we can't see who's on the other side of the screen. I am curious how things are going.

CV

strugglin~

How about an update? How are you doing? I'd really appreciate it if you'd respond to me -- I'd consider it a personal favor - pretty please?

Mrs. W

She is, in some way.

She is as fogged out as my WW was during her A. I see a lot of "that" person in this poster.

I am so glad "That" person no longer exists.

I'm a newbie but I've wanted to post to you since last week. I was travelling with my H (EP) and got to read your part of your thread.

I just want to let you know that there is HOPE if you stand firm in no contact. I'm several months with NC with OM. I wanted to forget about him but he kept on creeping back (sometimes in my dreams). It was very hard for me but I knew that if there was contact that I'm back to square one. I made a CHOICE not to think of him. Instead I/we worked on recovering our triple tsunami.

Whenever I think of OM, I would read books, do intense workout (no choice but to focus) and read here. Don't give in to temptation to 'check up' on him. Don't reset to day one. There is no future there. Work on recovery instead. You've been given a chance of recovery. TAKE IT!!! Don't look back.

When I think of OM (now), I think how foolish I was to fall in that trap. How can I be so stupid and have been used. But I don't dwell on that too much. Recovery is my focus and that's what you need to focus on.

Hopefully you're still reading your thread and that there's a lot of people here that cares about you and your marriage. Stand firm, you can do this!

Very nice post, Lost2010nomore.

I wonder if we're all jumping the gun a bit here. Just as Lost2010 made a CHOICE not to think of the OM, strugglingaz must first make a CHOICE to recover her marriage.

That choice seems to either be wavering or unmade. Please tell me I'm wrong, strugglingaz.

strugglin~

I just told this story to a friend of mine the other day, it's something I hadn't thought about in quite a few years, but something she said made me think of it, tonight I thought about that conversation again realized that it might help you, so I'll tell it again.

I have an illness that supposedly can impact my memory [it's nothing life threatening, btw]. Anyway, when I was first diagnosed with it, naturally I was concerned and to be honest it consumed me for a while -- I talked about it a lot and mentioned frequently that it caused memory loss -- I began to dwell on that and would make statements like, "Well you know my memory isn't what it used to be"...Finally my mom told me to knock it off. She said, the more you dwell on it and speak of it, the more likely it is to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What my mom said made sense to me, and I vowed that day to STOP IT. Today I have no problems with my memory at all. Actually, I have a pretty exceptional memory.

strugglin, my point is that you can do anything you set your mind to do. You control you. That is a very empowering thing once you realize it and seize it.

I really am looking forward to hearing from you.

Mrs. W

struggling, there are a lot of wonderful people on this forum who can help you. Mrs. W is right, you can do anything you set your mind to, and if your BH is willing, there isn't anywhere you can't go.

I might not have a recovered M, but that isn't from me not wanting it. I'd love to be able to help you achieve that goal.

Please don't give up.

How do you send personal messages on here?

So Gack, I see on your information, D-Day was 2008 and its 2011 and the fog still remains in a patch or two?? That doesn't leave me much hope.

Fog remaining in a patch or two is still a big improvement for most of us. I think Mr. Wondering has a good post somewhere about how we are all subject to fog (even betrayed spouses), and how somebody pointing out our areas of fog can be helpful.

It takes awhile for our thinking and our actions to adjust to new beliefs and a change in "inputs".

By the way, private messages are disabled on this site.

I don't know where the original thread is, but here is part of that post:

Thanks for reminding me about that, been a year since I updated it.

Took about a year after NC for FWW to defog enough to actually genuinely try any type of real recovery. Before that she sounded just like you.

We have nothing in common.
I never loved anyone like OM.
He came into my life for a reason.
Your like a Brother to me.
I never really loved you.
Blah, Blah, Blah.

After that passed, it was just patches of occasional fog. Mainly not realizing what she was saying and kinda "Glossing" over the repercussions of what she had done. She realized OM was a mistake, but was not 100% on board the marriage train either.

It was not until about a year ago she showed true, genuine remorse. The type of remorse someone shows when they realize they deliberately hurt the person they love.

It's really a shocking change.

Don't worry, you will eventually see OM for what he truly is. And you will realize that you have rewrote your marital history to fit and justify your current actions.

The question is how long will you drag this faze out by maintaining some form of contact, and will your marriage outlast your continued contact.

Interesting story Gack. So my question is if she was in the fog for that long, what made her continue to stay in the marriage? What eventually led to the change in her? Does she post on here?

Struggling, if you are looking for a reason to stay in your marriage, take a long look at those two little girls of yours ...

A number of things.

Her family and friends hitting her with 2x4s about her affair.
The reality of OM's financial situation.
My lawyer stalling the divorce.
Me learning how to, and actually meeting her emotional needs.
The slow realization that OM was NOT who/what she thought he was.

I also cook a mean steak.

I can assure you that being "In Love" with me was NOT one of them. Because at that point in time, she was not.

Also, if you really don't know "Who you are"

Ask them, they can probably tell you.

Change?

Change isn't a magic dust-bunny that is going to jump out from underneath the couch one day and whack you with the happy stick.

Change begins within YOU. And it begins with something very small, and very simple - a choice.



Make a choice. Commit to the marriage, or don't.

You know what not committing to the marriage looks like already...

AAAAACTually, I would hazard a guess that strugglingaz knows very little about what it really looks like to be out of the marriage. I suspect it is much, much worse than she imagines.

***

Glad to see you back, strugglingaz.

Yes...the reality is so much worse. Add to that when you finally understand the magnitude of what you've done and how YOU are to blame for deliberately hurting the man who loved you and driving him away, and subsequently you blew your daughters' lives apart, that knowledge eats at you every single day. When you can't stand to look at yourself in the mirror because you sold yourself so cheaply...you threw away marriage, your family, and in return you receive absolutely nothing.

THAT is my reality. THAT is what it is like to be out of the marriage.

struggling, I for one want to see you and your BH succeed. You don't want the world I live in. Trust me.

I am glad to see you back, too.

I started reading this thread last night, (mothers day), and I got thru 27 pages till I had to jump to the end to see if this statement was merited...

Another MB success story and building love in action, WooHoo!!

Happy Mothers Day all..

(((( wulffpack_girl ))))

You don't.
That feature has been disabled to prevent inappropriate relationships beginning on this web site.

If you want to communicate with Mrs W .... click "notify" tab on YOUR post, and write to the mods.
Give them YOUR email address and permission to share it with Mrs W.

Best wishes.

thank you, Pep....

I see some hope for strugglingaz, you know? And I might not be the best at saying things, but I just don't want her to end up like me...completely fogless, full of regrets, and alone. If I'd found MB sooner maybe it would have helped my M, maybe not, I'll never know...I don't know if I can help strugglingaz with my own experience (sort of "do as I say, not as I did"!!!), but I'd like to try!

WPG

Look forward to better tomorrows.
Learn from your past, but dwell in the present.

I am praying for your personal recovery.

Hang in there toots!

T/J

Just like we are all wired for affairs, we are wired for mistakes also. I have read many of your responses here to posters and have allways enjoyed your outlook and objectivity. For what its worth.

When we make mistakes and are not willing to teach others from them, and help them avoid them, though honesty and humility, that is when we are truely selfish. At those times we are forced to teach from the aspect of, "Do what I say, not as I did". Just look to the bible, 12 of the writers of the books were murders.

Life is for learning I have heard it said. I for one am so glad you are here WPG, and I too am here to help others avoid and understand from my mistakes. Like pep said, I am also working towards living in the now and putting painful things behind. Just being here soothes my soul, and helps me to realize that I am not alone. It helps me also to grow, and stabilize my values, as the people her are so awesome and are also learning how to take care of themselves, in or out of a marraige.

Looking forward to seeing you recover fully, and your insight, as we hang with the big dogs around here. (BTW Pep, that saying in your sig line that you stole from one of my posts , it originally came from a bunch of guys and I changed it to fit the post, it was.."If you want to pee with the big dogs..you gotta lift your leg high". I chuckled when I saw it in yur sigline)

End T/J

StrugglinA, hows it going? Keep us up to date k?

The most successful people in the world, in history, have only made it that way because while they knew failure, while they made mistakes, they never gave in to defeat.


Quitting might seem like "the easy way out," but it can come with a heavier cost which cannot be recovered; regret. Regret that we didn't try, regret that we ALLOWED ourselves to fail, to be defeated.

T/J of my own...Pep, you are a blessing to this forum!!! And thank you, CP! I for one am glad you are here as well, sharing your experiences and insight. Your advice is solid and straightforward, and FWIW, you are a poster who I always read, 'cause I do consider you one of the big dogs!

end T/J



I think this is good advice for all of us. Struggling, this weekend, I was quoting a "Pa-ism" (my grandfather) to DD#2, who was telling me she wanted to quit playing guitar:


Struggling, it is HARD. So many days you will want to throw up your hands in utter defeat. I know I do. But somehow I keep going forward. Some days it is only because, well, I have no choice. Someone has to feed the kids and take them to school, you know? But the fog will clear. The love you had for your BH will return. Allow him to meet your needs, and meet his in return. Read what Gack said about his WW again, how she slowly realized the truth about the OM. Maybe you already know the truth about him. Maybe you figured it out a long time ago, but don't want to admit it. Because when we realize what a scumbag the OM is, we then have to face what that says about us.

Don't be a stranger around here, 'kay?

Big lesson, that right there. And not a pretty one. But totally, totally necessary.

Awesome example of plain old horse sense WPG. Thank you for the compliment BTW, and HHH, those are the very examples we all need to relate to when we "hit the wall" in life.

StrugglingAz, when I started to read your thread, I at first wanted to hammer you also becuase I thought you were just not gonna get it at all, but I noticed the dates, and read through patiently holding my tounge, because I know how all this has to have time to sink in. Yes even to an independant self-made woman of the world.

Then as I was reading you made connections to other FWW, and as time passed, it started to gel in yourself, that there was a connection here, and that others understood, and maybe you were not alone in these struggles.

Many people come here thinking what is taught here means they are going to lose something, and they do not see that what is preached, is encouraged because it brings about abundance in life, not loss.

Of course that is what we see in marriage to begin with right? Two working together as one?

I hope you stick around, and are processing everything the books and concepts have to offer to build your marriage into something personal you can share with your Husband, that can not compare with anything else or anyone else, just as you or him cannot be replaced, by anyone else either. It is truly the most important relationship we will have with anyone in our whole lifes as human beings.

As different as all people are, the ground rules about relationships are much the same. You will find them and thier benifets in all the concepts you practice on this site and in Dr Hs teachings. You will still have a different marraige than others, and the problems you overcome internally, will be more precious than Gold.

Keep giving it time, and open yourself up to this part of your growth in your marraige. You will never regret it.

Oh, wonderful post, CP!

strugglingaz, you have so many people here who want you to succeed in this endeavor: succeed in your marital recovery and, even more necessary, succeed in your personal recovery. (Without the latter, you'll never achieve the greatest heights of the former.)

I hope your quietness means perhaps you are corresponding w/ Mrs. W, or that you are spending lots of time reading and learning and implementing the MB program. Please continue to visit the forum, and, please, keep posting. As rough as the threads get sometimes, I can't think of a single instance where someone was worse off for coming here.

Yes. I did.

strugglin~

I'm here reading along - thank you for posting - I hope you will continue. I'm really glad you are here -- as mad as this place may make you at times, I really know it's the right place for you to be right now.

I don't have a lot to say today -- I'm pretty tired out from the weekend right now, but I did want to let you know that I'm still around.

Mrs. W

P.S. wulffpack girl -- you are one of my faves around here -- and your current signature line? Love it -- I had that in my signature for a long time.

t/j thank you, Mrs. W - I've got a huge amount of respect for you and Mr. W...you guys are a real inspiration to folks on the boards! end t/j

hey, struggling, you are in good hands here! And PS - I had my own share of angry and defensive moments on the boards, but folks confront here because they care. Here you get the kind of support for marriage that is so often lacking IRL.

strugglin~

I once told you how being here helping others helped me tremendously in early recovery. Particularly, adding anything that I could to the threads of BHs trying to bust up affairs or those in very early recovery dealing with wives in withdrawal. I know that this place helped me very much when it came to getting my mind off OM -- helping me instead to focus on marriage -- what do you think about trying that for yourself?

If you are isolating that is not a good thing -- that won't help you get out of the pit -- reach out -- I have a very close friend who is a recovering alcoholic -- sober now for 8 years now I think it is -- She tells me "You have to give it away in order to keep it" -- There is a lot of wisdom in that.

What do you think?

Mrs. W

P.S. Thank you WPG!

Just thought I would let everyone know that she will probably no longer look or post here. You can probably change this thread name from "Almost lost an amazing man" to "Just Lost an amazing man".

SAD, SAD, SAD,

I greatly appreciate all the help you people tried doing for her-in the end she just wanted to following her feelings-not her head!!

Now we know, as many of us suspected, WHY you could not get the OM out of your head.

Your A never ended. You are cruel beyond words to do this to your H. I have been through a FR. Nothing could have been worse. The emotional abuse you have just heaped on your H is indescribable.

Go back and read WPG's thread. You are headed for the same nightmare she has heaped upon herself if you don't pull your head out, and fast.

Can't believe you would do this to your two innocent little girls, struggling ....

Don't dare tell yourself that they'll ever be able to forgive you for destroying their world.

Those little girls are counting on you to protect them from growing up in a divorced home. They do not deserve this.

You are their mother...protect them from this, strugglin. Realize the the OM does not care one bit about them and never will. You and your H can build an incredibly happy life for your family ~ but you need to do the right thing.

strugglin, you are making a Life Altering Decision, here. Is this really what you are choosing for yourself and your family?

Or will you actually have a little pride in yourself cut ties with loser boy? Because once your BH is gone, he's gone. Once your family is destroyed the puzzle pieces will not be put back together. You're not going to be able to un-ring this bell. You understand that, right?

...and struggling, if you don't think you'll be living a nightmare, you're wrong. While it is true that we WS's can't always repair the damage we created, we can try. You're not even trying.

Your BH was WILLING to reconcile and you are tossing him aside for a piece of garbage. That makes me sick. I would sell my soul for the chance that you just threw away for nothing.

So you think you'll have no problems tucking your daughters in at night, hearing them pray to God every single night to bring their Daddy home? Knowing that YOU are the reason that they hurt?

Welcome to my nightmare, struggling. You're too fogged to realize it yet, but one of these days you will.

WARNING: inflammatory post ahead!!

You know, people assume this wayward wife will de-fog. But what if she doesn't? Hm, strugglingaz? I wonder what that would look like, a wayward wife who destroys her nuclear family in favor of a cheap streetwalker's activities. (Although, to be honest, the streetwalker is just doing her job, so what does that make a wayward wife?)

So if she never de-fogs, and if she's responsible for raising kids, especially daughters, I wonder what she will teach them. Probably that it's okay to scr3w around, (literally). That it's okay to create problems and run away from them. That no such thing as honor or integrity exists. And morals? What are those??

She'll teach them amazing things about self-deception. And probably a lot about an inability to accept the consequences of one's actions, and a remarkable inability to apologize and make right.

She'll teach them it's okay to run around. Her daughters will grow up being "those girls," the ones everyone jokes about and the guys know ALL about. And they'll blame their mom. And hate their mom.

And can you imagine what they'll say if they do manage to grow up with their heads on straight, and then they finally realize just what their mother did to their lives? How will they feel about having such a selfish, selfish, and utterly amoral person for a mother?

I wonder if they would turn to the woman strugglingaz's betrayed husband is sure to find -- a woman worthy of him and his love in every way, a woman who will benefit a thousand-fold from InnerStrength's hard work and learning here at MB. A woman who will be the mom strugglingaz should've been - and failed to be, because she followed her teenage hormone-driven feeeeeelings to another man's cheap, filthy bed...

...and destroyed her kids' lives and herself in the process.

I wonder what that would look like?

***

I thought we would see the alternative, where strugglingaz became the woman who redeemed herself; the woman who recovered a marriage, who created an even better marriage with her betrayed husband; the woman who modeled honor and integrity and humility for her daughters, and who taught them the value of commitment. The woman who helped show those girls what marriage can be, even after a monumental mistake.

Because a mistake is one thing. But now you know, strugglingaz. And when you know better, you do better. So do better. Now's a great time to start.

Did she get tired, or did she just get lazy?

Lyin' eyes, and a quitter's selfish heart.



It's a damned shame.

What are you going to do, Strugglin?

You know, when my wayward mother got a divorce, she told everybody that her children would be all right because she would get them counseling, and that if you just got kids counseling everything would be just fine.

It wasn't.

We wound up with really screwed up relationships with our mother. I eventually just ended mine; I haven't seen her much at all in the last couple of decades.

Plus I missed out on a lot of the growing up I was supposed to be doing back then. Turns out kids whose parents divorce are more prone to fighting and conflict and other issues. I'm learning a lot of things now that I apparently should have been learning from the intact marriage of my parents.

And it's just damned lonely, you know? I ought to be taking my six beautiful children to see their grandmother, but they will never know her.

There are two things that need to be in every relationship: logic and passion. If only logic is there, it is actually fairly easy to create the passion if you just follow the right rules. Dr. Harley has helped make it happen for thousands of couples. But if the logic is not there, if there is only the passion ... you'll never make the relationship logical or fix the problems with it.

Well I can tell you all the story of my former best friend. She was a smart, beautiful, well educated woman. She was married to a stable, smart, nice looking and well educated man. They had two adorable little boys.

She's now had about 4 affairs -- maybe more, I've lost count. Her BH tried very hard to reconcile -- was willing to forgive her and build the best marriage imaginable. But no...she was convinced that her problems were because of HIM...Never seeing that she was miserable no matter how many times she changed the characters in her life -- never getting that the common denominator in her misery was HER VERY OWN SELF.

I haven't spoken to her in years and she knows exactly why -- and she was my best friend since childhood -- we were 8 & 10 years old when we met. I still think of her and mourn the loss of who she once was.

She married her last affair partner. She affaired way down -- this "man" has no education -- he works as a bartender and from what we are told drinks heavily -- my former best friend holds a Master's Degree. This is not the type of person she would ever have been attracted to before. They live in a shack of a house -- so different than what she was used to -- so different from how she was raised.

Just this week I found out that her affair husband was arrested in Feb of this year for Domestic Battery. It's tragic. Currently there is an injunction [filed by BXH] preventing affair husband from being around the children. Apparently though, my former friend intends to stay with "loser boy" who is taking anger management classes -- when those are finished the affairage partners intend to file for the injunction to be lifted. I pray that it's not -- I pray they violate the injunction and BXH is granted sole custody. I pray for the safety of those little ones, because I know that their best interests are not being considered at all by my former best friend. She destroyed their family and the destruction continues, and I'm sure she doesn't see any of that...

Think things will be different for you, strugglin? Think again. WAKE UP, stugglin!!!!

Mrs. W

Seems she is gone and just wanted validation for her misguided emotions. Her BH posted here and said as much.

Strugglin, I hope you have a change of heart and are willing to learn how to handle your emotions, but that is for your H and childrens sake primarily as far as I am concerned. Then again I would like to see marriages recovered for selfish reasons also, wanting a better world to live in.

We are not God or can we force you to see where your heading, but the consequences of your actions will anyway you can count on that. Many here have reached out to you and for your sake, and thats all we can do.

If and when you wake up we will be glad to show you the truth if you come back but be a big girl and take the 2x4s huh? Its the grown up thing to do dear.

A woman like her can't stand to stay away from the drama. No, she's still here, lurking in the shadows, not wanting us to know that she's listening in.

FWIW - My WW seems to be headed down a similiar path. Her choice of jobs, lack of stability, etc. all sound very familiar. My WW is also driven by her emotions; they will betray her eventually. She'll also find out who her true friends are and which male friends just want to get into her pants. Then there are the friends that are 'users.' We'll see how they show up and manifest themselves. She'll get older and the dating won't be as easy, etc, etc.

The hardest part for me is letting go of her and make her own mistakes.

Yeah Prisca hoping we will crack and feel sorry for her? I agree but I had to say it anyways. Just like if I was talking to anybody who was screwing up.

Its that Wayturd mindset that so convienietly runs away. Just want to spare her the righteous guy that I am.

Maybe your own words will open your eyes to what you are doing?

Struggling,

It doesn't have to be this way. InnerStrength is hurt and wounded and reacting in an understandable way. But it is still possible for you two to put this marriage back together into something wonderful. It is possible, and you can do it. Others have come back from worse to find themselves completely in love with each other, for life.

Struggling ~ you have a short window of time to wake up and pull your head out.

My H and I also went through a FR ~ it was horrendous, I can't describe the pain. But we've been in real recovery for 4 years now and things get better every day. People who meet us now would never in a million years believe what we've been through.

Last year we went to Vegas for 3 days by ourselves...we spent our days laying around the pool and just being together. I noticed a woman a little bit younger than me had been watching us. She came up to us out of the blue and said "You guys are the cutest couple ever...I just said to my friend "look, you can tell they just love being together". She couldn't believe that 16 years of marriage and 4 kids later, we still "acted like newlyweds" (her words).

We just smiled and told her thanks, yes, we do love being together!

My head was spinning because all I could think was "wow, we have come a long ways!". My H was pinching me under the water because he knew what I was probably really thinking.

You can have that too. I promise, it's possible.

strugglin~

I'd still like to talk to you about what's going on -- Could you check in for roll call please?

Mrs. W