heeeeelllllppp!!

[25yearsmlc]

I read your whole thread (or at least the one here).

You've gotten great, patient advice from some experienced people.

LISTEN TO THEM...and when you read "like 6 different books" it's clearly not helping you

b/c you missed the main points of Div Busting, and it's NOT like a lot of other marriage programs.

I found it to be much more effective in helping my marriage, however. But you can't dally with one approach and then switch the next week b/c you didn't get immediate results...

this will take consistent change in your behavior. That requires effort on your end.

When your wife said you ought to lose weight (which is true), your knee jerk reaction was to hit back

and that shows two things to me. You have a scorecard, which you will have to toss out. Scorecards hurt marriages.

You also blew a great opportunity to 1) COMPLIMENT her on her recent weight loss, which you told us about;

and or

2) admit your need to lose weight. That would show her that you are self aware, capable of taking constructive criticism, and capable of self improvement...= change...

Instead, you turned that golden opportunity into a fight. Don't do that again.

Here's an example of what I mean, from my own story.

My h had paid all the bills for years, often ahead of time and never late.

When he went off for his MLC adventure, he stopped paying some bills AND did not tell me this.

So the man came out to shut off our power for an unpaid electric bill and I rushed to pay it.

I had a DB coach session that day, thank God. I vented to my DB coach about the embarrassment and rage I felt that h was gone AND dumping everything on me and yada yada yada.

Later when h called, I told him about the electricity almost getting cut off. He was very defensive and said "now you know how stressful it is to pay bills b/c I've been paying them for 20 years now!"

To which I said, "and I want to THANK YOU for that, b/c it IS a stressor..."

about 30 seconds seemed to pass...a very long pause in which I bet my h stared at the phone...my reaction was NOT what he expected or geared up for...

and then h said, "you're welcome" and we began to chat about some other things and had a decent conversation.

This was a huge "180" for me...and though it was a short event, it was a pivotal one for me.

I started to see how much more effective a calm response was, even a compliment when I felt like screaming, worked far better than what I felt like saying.

YOU need to make pivotal changes asap or you'll lose your wife.

And my gut says you are not an involved father and you may lose the kids too.

How much does that bother you? More importantly,

Does it bother you enough, for you to change you?

There's no other way to reconcile with your wife. YOU MUST CHANGE...

and as for the alleged affairs, all I can say is that your focus is misplaced. Oh, and your testing her underwear is one of the weirdest things I've read here and I've been on this site for years.

Frankly it sounds nutty as he11. IF there's an OM, and IF he matters enough to her, she'll let you know. Stop the snooping. Div Busting is firmly against it (and against exposing to other people) so that is another reason I doubted you had read the book. One principle of DBing is to

Keep the Road Home, Paved & Smooth...exposing an affair to 3rd parties does the opposite.

In many cases it pushes the wayward spouse into the arms of OM more...

AND

If there is an OM, we'd all tell you to work on YOU

and if there's No OM, we'd say the same thing...

In my opinion, Your wife sounds terribly sad & unfulfilled in your marriage

and I'm genuinely sorry to say this,

but you come off as very self centered and emotionally lazy. I know you have no role models for a good marriage but clearly you need them. (Retrovaille is a weekend retreat that has a follow up program, and it provides role model couples who have been thru bad problems but made their marriages good and admirable and loving and FUN)...

but you must DO something to fix this...no more complaining but then doing nothing.

Your marriage was very troubled a few years back and you did NOTHING to change that...not one thing...

AND you come here and ignore most of the advice and focus all your energy on trying to find an OM b/c then, I assume, you'll get to feel like a victim (not appealing by the way)

and that will make you feel "right", which is clearly more important to you

than saving your marriage...b/c let's face it, blaming her is so much easier than changing yourself.

Maybe You take the easy way out too much. For instance, you said you are Not very responsible with money, as if it's a minor flaw AND one which you can do nothing about...like um, read a book on personal finance...?? Talk to a financial consultant??? Take a class??

Hey, being financially irresponsible is not attractive in anyone, but it's worse with a man. Sorry for the sexist remark, but we women want men who make us feel secure & safe, which means financially safe and physically safe...and emotionally/sexually safe.

That brings me to another issue...you told your w she was ugly and fat when you were fighting. Then you claim she knows you are still attracted to her b/c you wanted sex with her...but let's face it, you'd have sex with any willing woman if you were free to, wouldn't you?

I mean, the way you talk about sex and wanting it REGARDLESS of context or the emotional circumstances you and your wife are in, makes me think you are fine having sex with her, no matter what she looks like or if you are attracted to her. You could imagine she was someone else while making love and she probably assumes you do that. That's how I'd feel if I were her.

And so you know,

If my h were to tell me I was ugly or fat, we would NOT have sex again for a very long time, if ever, no matter how much HE wanted it...

Seriously, you need to know that to a lot of women, including ME, that kind of comment would possibly end our sex life - and that would end our marriage.

As angry as I have been at my h in the past, and I was VERY angry at him in his MLC

I never once even thought of making a comment about his appearance. (He has some scars on his neck from a surgery gone wrong, for example).

That's just a below the belt type of thing you cannot take back.

I realize that somehow you didn't know this, which is why I'm saying this so strongly. I want you to be clear about that. There are some things you just never say to your spouse, ever. Got it?

You cannot say things like that and expect a woman to want you sexually...it kills the sex drive for her (vis a vis you) but it may spark the need to feel attractive to other men.

So IF there's an OM, I would think it's related mostly to the horrible things you said to her that made her want the attention of a man, a man who had not hurt her.

Anyhow, since your marriage was rocky a few years back, and you did nothing to change...in fact you said it got swept under the rug...
that makes me think you like doing nothing.... but complain,

and then hope OTHERS change...so my question for you is,

What actions are you taking to become a man only a fool would leave?

RE the weight issue... A 3 mile walk is a nice start & I hope you'll keep it up for several reasons. But just so you know what other men do, my h is in his 50s now.

He jogs a few miles a day, & he lifts weights. He's attractive to me. I love that he takes care of his body. I appreciate his efforts.

I imagine your wife seeing you actually exercise will make more of an impression on her, than you lying about a call to a doctor would. (Why'd you lie about the call?)

Btw, why did you want to call a doctor anyway? I mean, is there a mystery about why or how you gained 75 lbs?

OR are you asking for medical advice about losing the weight or wanting appetite suppressants? Just curious.

Good luck. I hope you'll really LISTEN to what your wife says

and what is said here.

There's more success here (and in Retrovaille)

than any other program I know of---but understand that

*** for a person to come here and post, or to attend Retrovaille, means their marriage is in deep trouble to begin with.

Given that, I think we do alright. I don't know a more successful program or I'd have used it. I sure did a lot of research at the time.

I KNOW we'd have divorced if I had not found DBing, b/c I would have filed.

Now I'm a better wife and mother, thanks to this approach.

Even if we had ended up divorced instead of reconciling, I know this approach to relationships has helped me become a better woman.

That matters a lot to me.