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Topic: Adultery

Expert: Suzie Johnson
Date: 4/25/2008
Subject: Salvage my 4 months marriage

Question
QUESTION: Hi Suzie,

Sorry for bothering you again.

Just need one final advice from you on whether I'm moving in the right direction and any more advice to refine my thinking and actions towards my marriage. The following are my thoughts:

- I am going to focus on building my relationship with my wife rather than trying to break theirs (whatever that might be).

- I will put her as my priority, be her listener and try to think from her perspective, rather than from my own.

- I will be attentive to her needs and try to inject new events into our marriage life, rather than the standard that we have been doing for years.

- So far I have shielded my mum from my wife's hatred towards her. I hope I am making the right decision that I want to now make known to my mum about it and to list the reasons and defend my wife in that respect. This is to let my wife knows that I am willing to stand up for her, even if it is towards my mum. My wife is very bitter about many issues she has with my mum and she thinks that we are in this state because of her. Therefore I decide to not shield my mum, but rather confront/explain to her for my wife's sake.

- I will still try to break up the routine she has with that guy, like carpooling, but I will be careful not to stop her desire to have him as a best of friend. She did agree to slowly back off and reject his offers to send her.

Few quetions on dealing with the guy:

Should I still warn her about this man's integrity, like when she mentioned that this guy still have affection for her? Or should I let her sought out her own opinions of this guy?

How should I respond, when the guy keep asking my wife for the both of us to join him at his place for watching sports together? Considering the fact that my wife has a strong desire that I can be good friends with him and the fact that he recently confessed to my wife that he ever thought of leaving his own wife for the sake of my wife. Should I face him without fear of affecting my marriage or should I just not go along so that my wife would have less interactions with him, even though I'm around. He is a good talker, btw.

I hope after this I can be on my own.

I hope I can do more than just rating you for the help you have offered me. Thanks.

Regards,
HH

ANSWER: Dear HH,
Thank you for the opportunity to serve. As usual, your questions are very good.

So, let take them one by one:

"Regarding shielding your mom"
That's very noble of you to do s. Since in a way you are the common denominator between the two women, it's part of the role you play to shield them from each other. However with that being said, it seems like there's quite a bit of dishonesty going on, maybe even some hypocrisy.

I find it hard to believe that your mom doesn’t at least on some level "sense" the hostility your wife has towards her... women are generally very intuitive so chances are she already knows.

My advice about this situation:

Walk slowly. Be gentle. Don’t "rush" into confronting or defending your wife to her. It seems to me at this point you have bigger fish to fry. And my rule of thumb when it comes to this sort of thing is to swallow the big frog first -and the smaller ones go down easier.

In other words...

don’t try to solve the problems between your mother and your wife right now. Instead, focus on the challenges between your wife, you and this mystery man.

Here's why:
Imagine that you have a headache, a backache and a bleeding wound. Which would you treat first? That's right... you would stabilize the wound, then depending on intensity treat the headache followed by the backache ( or vice versa)

It's the same thing here.

Even though the tension between your mom and wife maybe contributing to your over all issues- you’ve got treat it secondary now that this other complication is in the picture

First lets stabilize things between yourself and your wife. lets Use this an opportunity to strengthen the bonds between you.

Try this…

There’s a book that I highly recommend you buy and study ( do this as soon as you finish reading ) It's called: The 5 languages of love http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/

Read this book all this week, and then DO WHAT IT SAYS. Let it teach you how to LOVE your wife in ways that will blow away any doubts in her mind.

HH.... Here's the deal:
She is human just like the rest of us. She is struggling to find herself. She wants certainty. She wants you to show her that she made the right choice.

This is NORMAL.

Every wife, tests her husband. This is your test. You can let it intimidate you, or you can use it to become the husband-hero of her dreams.

How do you do that?

You help her to conquer those doubts and fears. By showing her and telling her that being with you is the absolute BEST choice she ever made.

I am going to write that statement again.

This time I want you to cut and paste it into a word document and then print it out in large letters - then tape those words on your bathroom mirror/ on your computer screen... any where you can see it for at least 14 days.

It's not to convince HER... it’s to convince YOU. Because once you know in your heart of hearts, your soul of souls... that YOU are the absolute best choice she could have made, then you will LOSE all insecurities, and second guessing yourself. Because NO woman can walk away from a totally confident man, so is brining 100% of his heart to marriage.

So, here it is again...

THE PRESCIPTION FOR SAVING YOUR MARRIAGE:

(her name)______BEING WITH ME... IS THE ABSOULUTE BEST CHOICE YOU COULD HAVE EVER MADE

Next issue:

"Dealing with the other man"

HH, you are definitely in a pickle on this issue. The mostly because of the lack of clarity here.

IF there is an emotional affair happening here... then my rules are very clear:

I recommend a DNC " DO NOT CONTACT" or at the very least minimal contact ( but only if it a work colleague and you have to see them etc)

Because without contact …Eventually ALL feelings fade.

However in your case... since there's been NO CLARITY as to the emotional involvement etc... it's hard to advise you...

So here are so general guidelines:

1.First and foremost... You have to become alert. (NOT ANXIOUS) but alert. This means paying attention to her moods, attitudes, whereabouts, etc,but NOT controlling or interrogating her.

2.Take pro-active steps to minimize contact. As i said before affairs require time, effort and opportunity. Do not help to provide any of those things. However, the secret is to NOT appear as if you are "suffocating her" - so it’s up to you to provide creative alternatives.

For example he invites you to watch a football game... you say yes to watching the game AND no the location not at his house. ( a local pub maybe, and invite others as well). If he's texting her... then you I suggest you do more things that require her to NOT bring her phone. More ‘alone” activities etc..

Thing about it this way...

If you had a teenage daughter and she was being "lured" into drugs by friends she thought where cool... how would you handle it? For sure you wouldn’t want to say: " I don’t want you talking to those friends anymore" or “ I don’t want to see you with those friends ever again”

You've been teenager and so you know that to telling someone NOT to do something IS to give them reasons to rebel, hide and “push against your rules"

Your best option? Would be to create a better distraction. Sports, travel, rewards, do things with her, engage her on levels that she wants to be engaged on... the same applies in your situation – does this make sense?

Listen up here... I am NOT saying this is easy. I am only telling you what works. ok?

3. I DO recommend that you talk to him about his inappropriate conversations with your wife - which are crossing certain boundaries. However, you have to do this with your wife being present AND you have to do this AFTER you know for sure ( and she knows for sure) that being with you is the absolute best choice she made.

But from where you are today...

This might not be the best time. You see, if you approach him with an energy of : "trying to get him to back off" or trying to guilt him, threaten him or making him feel bad for what he’s doing - that WILL back fire. (trust me on this one)

So while I do believe that it’s important that you are NOT passive about the issue. There’s an order of importance that cannot be overlooked.

Until you set things right within your own self and marriage - confronting him will simply make you look week.

Here's the deal:

There are three things you need to keep a happy marriage:

Love, trust & sexual happiness.

When there's a "hole" or a lack in any of these areas it's like leaving a backdoor open at night for thieves to come in.

The question is where is hole in your marriage?

Is it in the “love area”?
You can’t love people they way YOU want to love them. You have to love them they way THEY want to be loved. are you loving her the way she wants to be loved? IS she loving YOU the way you want to be loved?

and what about trust?
Love without trust is impossible. And yet trust is not something you can "Earn". Just like love is something you can "prove" . They are "gifts" that are shared between two equals.

And what about sexual happiness? Do you know what sexual happiness means to her?
For women it’s very different than for men. For women sexual happiness is not about "sex" is about passion. It's not about quantity - it's about the quality. It's not about penetration as much as it about foreplay...

Well, I guess I have covered just about all there is to cover. I wish you continued progress in the right direction.

And if you want to speed up this progress

then follow the instructions and suggestions I have given you. But only do them IF you are truly ready to awaken more happiness in your wife, your heart and your marriage

Gratefully,
SuzieJ

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Suzie,

I understand your advice, and I know logically I should be as confident as I can, and these will definitely improve our time together and our relationship can then move towards the right direction. I have even bought the book you suggested and has been trying to speak the right love language to my wife.

However due to my inability to control my emotions, I continued to make mistakes that you have warned me about, and true enough, it backed fire. I have to go the state of asking my wife's best friend for help. Her friend assured me that my wife is willing to cut all contacts with this guy. Unfortunately, my wife continues to take his car and still continues to lie to me. I was very upset about that, but did not confront her.

I think my wife is still committed to our relationship, and the counsellor that we visited assured me that as well, but he did say that as much as he preferred that my wife has no contacts with this man (probably this counsellor has the same concerns as you, i.e. emotions was involved), he can tell that my wife is a determined person and she wouldn't give up this friendship with him. His advice to me is to accept the fact that there will be 20% of the time (a common thing according to him) my wife will not be truthful to me and I should forget about that guy and focus on our relationship as well as my own leisure time. He said people do change, refering to my wife. I believe he wants me to take my head off this matter and move on.

My question to you is, should I be controlling my emotions, bury them, etc, and just accept my wife's lies about her time with this man? Accept what the counsellor has adviced, i.e. change my expectations for this 10 year relationship, where there is almost no lies or hiding of sensitive information from each other, and accept the fact that her expectation/commitment to our relationship has changed?

Or should I continue to work positively towards a radically honest or at least to what we used to be kind of relationship? I am starting to believe that if I continue to have this kind of expectations, it will be hard that I not be emotionally affected by the lies of my wife.

Answer
Dear HH,

Thanks for the opportunity to serve. I am glad to know that you are also seeking professional help with your relationship. That's always a good sign.

Rather than serve up more advice...
Let’s do something a little different.
If you are up to it, I would like to treat you the same as I would my clients.

It's my philosophy that change happens on two levels:

Education/intellect. ( Much of that you have been getting lately) and the second, is from experience. Part of what I do for my clients is structure oppertunities for my clients to have both.
I am a big believer that "experience" is the real teacher in life - not logic. .

So, let do an experiment

are you up for it?

Ok. If you are, here goes...

After you have read this response from me. Go back and re-read the two previous responses. Make specific notes of my advice to you about confidence, focus and where to place your attention.

Next,
Go out and rent the movie "why did I get married" starring Janet Jackson. ( even if you have seen it recently - rent it again)

Watch that movie with your wife. Watch out for the scene where they talk about the 80/20 rule. STOP the movie at this point and "gently" ask her what she thinks about this rule ( BTW, I have an intuition, this rule is similar to the one your counselor suggests - this movie may help you get a deeper understanding of it)

Your directives:

1. Pay attention to the "gentle" part. I want you to discover HER feelings about this rule -but do NOT try and change those feelings

2. Then I want you to ask her "specifically" what 80% she gets met in her marriage. Try to encourage her to tell you EXACTLY what those are.

YOUR MISSION

Your mission is to simply "listen" NOT argue. NOT change. Not pressure. Treat her like a person applying for a job, simply ask her questions and listen to the answers and make a mental note of her responses.

Do you think you can do that?

If you can. Then i invite you to write back and tell me what her responses are, as well as your feelings about those responses.

(important) I want you to be alert, and watch if notice ANY changes in her behavior ( e.g. More loving/less loving, more sexual, irritated etc) within 24hrs of our experiment.

That's it for now.

If you are willing to try something a little different. Go ahead and follow the directives exactly as suggested.

If not, that's fine too.

Until we speak again,

Gratefully,

SuzieJ

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