I am Father's Eyes husband. We are currently working the Marriage Builders program. I wanted to start a thread to get some feedback from former wayward husbands.

Also, I wanted to thank all of those who gave my wife advice. If it wasn't for you all, I might not be here now. You all were right on the money. - spot on.

I am open to suggestions or advice.

SLT

Hi SLT!! Welcome to Marriage Builders!

Most of us here who are familiar with Marriage Builders can help with your questions. Was there something specific you wanted to get feedback on?

Thanks for the welcome. I like your straight forward advice, Melody.

I am working on meeting my wife's EN's, but I am struggling with creative ways to show her affection. Truth is, I've always struggled with that. Also, I want to help her feel safe in our marriage again. Any advice on that?

Hi, slt, welcome to marriage builders. have you watched dr harleys video yet?

Hi Markos. Thanks. We did watch the one on infidelity. Are there any others that you would recommend?

Affection: dr harley has some q&a articles on this you should read. some affection is symbolic, i.e, a hug. Some affection is an act of care, i.e. simply doing the dishes or grocery shopping. All affection communicates "i care about you." But the symbolic acts wont mean anything unless the concrete acts of care are there, too.

Thanks. I'll check those out.

Helping your wife be safe: you will need to read what dr harley says about extraordinary precautions, and find and read herpapabear's extraordinary precautions thread. do not have opposite sex friendships. Do not keep any secrets, even secrets to "protect" your wife. Reveal to your wife all of the conditions that led to your affair and make rules for yourself that will keep you out of those conditions from now on.

I didn't see any articles on affection. Are they under the articles tab? Sorry, I'm not very good with computers.

I have done all of that except read herpapabears thread. I will read that. Thank you.

'

SLT, there is a good chapter on this subject in His Needs, Her Needs that is more thorough, but this article is pretty good too:

How to Meet the Need for Affection

eventually you need to watch them all! but if you have watched the infidelity video, i recommend you read all the articles on how to survive infidelity under questions and answers. then read the book surviving an affair.

Most of the articles are actually under questions and answers, rather than articles.

Welcome, SLT. I'll be back with some questions for ya, probably not til tomorrow or Saturday.

Welcome, SLT.

I understand that your and FE are 'working the program'. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts ARE about 'the program'. What are your thoughts about Marriage Builders?

BTW, the decision to end your affair is easily the best decision you will ever have made, short of marrying FE in the first place. You, sir, have dodged a bullet. You may not know that yet, but you eventually will.

SLT, I'm someone who was in your shoes in a lot of ways. Once upon a time, I never thought I'd go off-track the way I did. But I ended up getting into an affair with a fellow singer (also married) on the church music team -- how's that for makin' a mess outta things? In a matter of weeks, I went from being everybody's idea of a great husband, great dad to really believing I loved two women. Sometimes people get even more messed-up than that, but it doesn't really get too much more messed-up than that.

I sure never thought I'd be talking about this stuff with strangers on an internet forum. I never thought I'd get much out of reading a 'self-help' book like "Surviving An Affair." And I would've told you that talking about stuff like "emotional needs" and "love-bank deposits" was some touchy-feely mumbo-jumbo that a tough guy like me would have no use for.

I'm gonna leave you with a couple of thoughts for now, and also ask you some questions, so listen up:

THOUGHTS:

--On a lot of days, I thought I'd never be able to fix what I had broken. Part of saving your marriage is accepting that this is true. When you & I lied & cheated, we broke things we can't ever fix -- like perfect trust. But the way you get past that is, you build something better than that. You can't rebuild perfect trust, but you can build a better marriage than what you had before the affair.

-- And that has to be your goal. You may have been thinking that you just wish you could get back to how things were before the affair. Nope -- That wasn't good enough, was it? It ain't gonna be good enough. Instead, your & your wife's goal has to be to get to a marriage that's better than it was before the affair. The way you help your wife & yourself get over this mess is that you make the present & the future better than the past.

-- There are explanations for what you did, but there are not excuses. A recently wayward spouse isn't always able to know the difference, and a betrayed spouse is not always ready to care about the difference. Just keep this in mind when you're about to say something to your wife.

-- You've heard the saying "Talk is cheap." Well, keep in mind that your word is worth next to nothing right now. The only things that will buy you credit with your wife right now are (1) actions and (2) complete, 100% honesty. You can't just read your way out of this mess, you can't just pray your way out of it, and you can't just talk your way out of it at all. Actions & honesty are what you can do.

-- Be patient: It's said that when both spouses are on-board with saving the marriage and putting in good effort, it takes around two years for a couple to feel that their marriage has "recovered." That means you can't expect her hurt to be gone for a long time. And she'll have days, ups-&-downs that people say are like an emotional roller-coaster. The overall trajectory should be in the direction of getting better, if you are honest, if you have no contact with the affair-partner, if you make a good effort to learn & meet your wife's emotional needs, and if you give her a fair chance to identify & meet your emotional needs.

-- Have no more contact with the affair-partner, none, not ever: This is the most important thing for you. You can roll all kinds of stuff around in your head about things you feel you need to say to her, questions you might want to ask her, trying to get some kind of "closure", but I guarantee you that it's not worth it. During the past two years, you went & got yourself hooked on the free attention that you were getting from her. It's the same as coming off crack cocaine, right down to the effect on brain-chemistry. You need to go through withdrawal. You can't afford a relapse. You're hitting with two strikes in the count -- one more strike & you're gone.

QUESTIONS:

-- How do you think it came to be that you ended up getting mixed up with some lady from down at the marina?

-- Why do you think it happened?

Your answers will give me a better picture of your mindset -- the areas where you may be seeing things straight already, and the areas where you might not yet be seeing things the right way. (Important: Don't tell me what you think I might want to hear, or what you think FathersEyes wants to hear. Just give it to me straight, and we'll take it from there.)

--Finally, if you could give a run-down of where you stand on each of the actions on FathersEyes' "conditions" list, that'd be helpful.

And if YOU have questions, ask. I'm not here to beat you up, but I will tell ya that if I hear something that sounds like b.s., I'll call you on it -- and you shouldn't want it any other way.

Good morning, SLT. I was on my phone last night and was not able to provide links for you. I'm hoping you found things on your own, but just in case you didn't:

Dr. Harley's video:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi1001_infidelity0.html

I didn't mention these articles last night, but I suggest you read them first. Can't We Just Forgive and Forget, parts 1, 2, and 3:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042_qa.html
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042b_qa.html
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042c_qa.html

How to Survive Infidelity:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5525_qa.html
(There are 30 articles in this section. The links are on the left sidebar. The first one is "Coping with infidelity: beginning (part 1)." The last one is "What are Plan A and Plan B?" I recommend you read them all.)

Surviving an Affair (book):
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi6070_sa.html
You can also find this on Amazon, or elsewhere.

Extraordinary precautions, by HerPapaBear, former wayward husband:
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2557828

Thank you. I have read that. We need to get His Needs her Needs. We had the one for parents, but gave it to our daughter and her husband.

Maritalbliss,

I think Marriage Builders is a good program. So far, so good. Just wish we would have found it years ago.

As far as dodging a bullet goes, I already realize it. I realized when I thought I lost my wife for good.

Thanks for all the links, Markos. I have read the articles and we are reading Surviving an Affair together. We will watch the videos this week.

Gloveoil,

Thank you for taking the time to post all of that. Please bear with me, I'm not very good with computers and I don't get on very much. I also don't have the broadest vocabulary to express myself like you.

Thanks for sharing your story. I understand that I need to be patient- that it will take time. You are so right about no contact. I learned the hard way that you can't make things work with continued contact.

Sorry about that.

To answer your questions:

I didn't plan on getting mixed up with anyone. I wasn't looking. She was a friend and we started talking about our marriages. I know now that that is a BIG no no. Dr. Harley is right on the money with that. Instead of talking to my wife, I talked to her. Then, as you know, one thing lead to another. I was letting her meet needs that my wife wasn't meeting. I can see now how it happened. I know that I can't have friends of the opposite sex.

As far as the conditions go, I have met them all with the exception of changing jobs. The only reason is because marina's don't hire in the winter and I don't want my family to starve. I have friend of ours working with me for accountability until I can make a job change. Not sure what else I can do about that. I think my wife understands this, but I know she is having a hard time with it.
I can't think of any questions right now. Thanks again.

When this list of conditions was created, it was not intended to be a check off list.


REQUIREMENTS TO COMING HOME
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Humility

Remorse

Surrender emotionally before me and spiritually before God

Godly sorrow (not fleshly sorrow) (Godly: sorry that I ever had the A & did this to our family. Fleshly: sorry I hurt you)

Authentic repentance

Own your choices and the consequences they caused (to yourself, me, children, extended family, friends, etc.)

Apology for the A and your hurtful actions before and after

Confession & apology to children

Confession to extended family & certain close friends that have confronted him

Change jobs

Accountability forever to 2 men that I choose

Attend church again

No Contact Letter

Agree to work the Marriage Builders Program

Complete radical honesty about our entire history together

15+ hours together weekly

Pray with me daily

Agree to never go back to the Deale/Shadyside area without me.


Lets look at it and chat about it, OK.

Read ALL my posts that are about to follow and then go back and answer them after you've thought about them for a little bit ( think about it for more than one minute, less than 15 minutes

Humility - This is an ongoing demonstartion of your character, so what are you doing everyday to demonstrate it?


Remorse - This is an action that, not an emotion. Guilt is an emotion often confused as remorse. What actions have you taen to show your remorse and what actions are you taking daily?

Surrender emotionally before me and spiritually before God - When we surrender, we raise our white flag and give it all to God. We cease fighting everything and everyone. We Wholly Surrender. Have you tried to take over in any areas, or started making decisions independently again? Or are you falling to your knees daily and discussing every decision with your wife and with God?

Godly sorrow (not fleshly sorrow) (Godly: sorry that I ever had the A & did this to our family. Fleshly: sorry I hurt you)- What does this mean to you? Are you still thinking about this? Do you still have times that you grieve? Are you grieving this together with your wife or alone?

Authentic repentance - How did this occur for you? Is this still ongoing?


Own your choices and the consequences they caused (to yourself, me, children, extended family, friends, etc.)- This is so far reaching! I'm still living with the consequences of my A. Are you owning your consequences and avoiding the pitfalls of self-pity and resentments? Are you reluctant to own your consequences as 100% yours? What are you doing to make sure you never let that "blame of others" slip into the equation?

Apology for the A and your hurtful actions before and after - Are you making this happen? Are you allowing this to be something you�ll do as many times as your wife needs to hear it? Or have you made this a one time event & now just wanting her to hurry up and get over it? Trust me, She�ll know & She�ll sense the difference and it will impede your recovery.

Confession & apology to children - This one will take years. It may be an event in your eyes, but please trust me when I tell you it�s a long PROCESS. You get to own this area 100% and the damages, your just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Are you in it for the long haul? Are you going to be willing to bring up your adultery with your daughters and discuss the pain it created in their lives over the years, or do you plan to sweep it under the rug?


Confession to extended family & certain close friends that have confronted him - I made amends and also asked all family and friends to support my wife 100% no matter what they might think. I also asked them to forgive me for all my half-truths/lies, spin-of-the-truth/lies, withholding of the facts/lies, etc. etc. etc. I shared that I was more worried about protecting my affair than I was about being honest with anyone. I took 100% of the blame, because it was all mine. My wife, nor your wife had a vote as to whether we had an affair! Hence, we get to OWN IT ALL! Have you OWNED IT ALL?
I have a friend that still calls me a Dumb-[censored] every time our discussion turn to my A. We both smile, and I encourage him to remind me how ignorant my choices were. Do you have someone that is doing this for you?

t/j to PapaBear, if you get a chance, go check out the thread on OT, "Do Waywards deserve empathy?" I would love to hear your perspective!

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2676087#Post2676087

Change jobs - I�ll never buy the excuses, so save em for someone else! Get this done now! You�re a mechanic and you can turn wrenches anywhere while you continue seeking a better job.

Accountability forever to 2 men that I choose - Be accountable to your wife first! Are you doing that?

Attend church again - Are you doing this?

No Contact Letter - Done!

Agree to work the Marriage Builders Program - You agreed, but what exactly does this mean to you? Have you contacted the Harley�s and set up Coaching sessions? Are you taking the lead in this? Are you waiting for your wife to take the lead? What exactly is your PLAN?

Complete radical honesty about our entire history together - did you write out a time line about you�re your entire A? Will You? Are you answering questions anytime they come up? Or are you resistant?

15+ hours together weekly - what�s this look like? Are you and your wife learning about UA? Have you both done the R.C. Questionnaire?

Pray with me daily - When are you doing this and for how long?

Agree to never go back to the Deale/Shadyside area without me. - Have you followed this? 100%?

Polygraph - Have you done this yet? Are you willing to set this up, research it with your wife and let her make the decisions about who, what, where & when?

I know, that was more than a few posts to you....

I answered all these same questions, because I had very similar requirements! As you'll see in my siggy line, Sexymamabear is my wife. May not mean much to you, but ask your bride about her..

Do you have a todo list that you are filling out as you read these articles? Make a list. As you move through the articles, your list should change from a list of "read this article" to "do this." And you should start doing the things on the list. You should try to accomplish the things that the articles suggest with the maximum velocity possible. Many of the things you will need to do are lifetime habits, so you will need to keep doing them every day, for life. Again, maximum velocity possible.

Do you know what the four rules to guide recovery after an affair are, yet? By now you should know, and you should be following them.

Hey SLT -- how'd you guys fare through Sandy?
It was mostly a lotta not much over here in NoVa...

SLT, I dunno whether you still read on here, but I'll tell you what:

You need to put the hammer down on this business with your ol' man. Your old man needs to have your wife's back. There's no reason for him ever to talk to OW again. And it's up to you to make this clear to your old man. Because you need to have your wife's back.

Any questions?