My wife and I were married through a controlling Christian ministry almost three decades ago. Though she states an intense attraction to me, I had little other than Affectionate Regard for her. This has been the case for me, and now is the case for her per her “ILYB” and “I see you more as a brother” comments this past week. She also confessed that her initial attraction/Limerence was overstated. While I am gleaning nuggets from your book and the explanation of AR is particularly helpful, it’s hard to keep turning pages when the “return to Limerence” theme is so prevalent and pervasive throughout. That place and experience has never genuinely or mutually existed for us. Per usual, I am terribly discouraged in yet another attempt to make things better. Perhaps we’re fated to AR or going our own separate ways after 27 years of slogging it out.

Andrew Writes

The stories we tell ourselves about our relationships are incredibly important.  In the West the story is “we fell madly in love with each other because we were made for each other” and if things go wrong we can always have the goal of getting back to the beginning.  However, in the East where they have more arranged marriages the story is that “love builds over time” and “you learn to love each other over time”.

Previously, you had a story that your Minister had chosen you for each other – but unfortunately it seems that that story has collapsed.  There’s no reason why you can’t learn to grow together – like in other ‘arranged’ marriages -  but something is stopping you?  If you were seeing me, I would be very interested in exploring your anger – because I expect you have a lot of complicated feelings about the ‘controlling’ Christian Ministry that put you together in the first place.  I think you have to mourn the past and let go of your expectation that you’re going to feel madly in love with each other.  And certainly your wife pretending that that is how she felt hasn’t helped with that.

When the anger and regrets have been expressed, you can start to learn the skills to communicate better. (Hopefully, my book will help.) At this point, you can talk over what’s happened, where you are now and decide together where to go next.

Now this is really complex and emotionally difficult stuff.  So, although I don’t say this very often, I really do think you would benefit from having a therapist helping you through this one.

My wife told me her ‘feelings have changed’ just before the Easter holidays this year. I knew things hadn’t been good between us for several months. We have three young children, who are rightly both of our priority. We have never argued in fifteen years of marriage – which I realise is not a good thing. We really did stop communicating about anything really. I told my wife every night before bed that I loved her and she always mumbled it back in a very non-committal way. Since Easter, we still share a bed, but have not had any intimacy. She said being around me was making her depressed.

We had an initial session with Relate and |I was honest about my feelings and said that I still loved my wife and wanted to make things good again. My wife spoke about selling the house and buying separate homes. She spoke about what a good parent I was ( as I did her ).  We spoke and laughed in the car for a further hour about everything – she said she felt confused and her strong Catholic faith made thing more complicated.

I have since had counselling through occupational health at work, which has given me a huge insight into my behaviours and the problems they have helped cause – things like always seeing negatives, being set in my ways and having a generally low expectation of life.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve totally changed my behaviour – I’m easy going, positive (most of the time) and we communicate and laugh so much more. I’ve completed lots of outstanding DIY type projects, which trust me is very out of character and seems to have surprised my wife!! The whole atmosphere in the house has been lifted. My wife went to a work conference last week, which involved an overnight stay – I kissed her on the head as she left, she seemed uncomfortable with this, but didn’t say anything.  She has cuddled up to me in bed, in the night (something which would not have happened a few weeks ago) I’ve not told her I love her since Easter (although I do) and am feeling the strain when I’m at work etc. thinking that she might just be going along with me. I try hard not to over analyse everything, which is difficult. We chat via text when we are both at work – she tells me more about her day etc.

I feel I need to tell her I love her and hold her, but I think this would not be well received – how long should I leave this? We have another Relate session on Wednesday. This scares me because I could hear that she doesn’t want to continue trying. My whole thought process centres around making things work. My wife has spoke about the plans for a holiday at the end of the month, which still is going ahead. She has also spoken of longer term projects around the house. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. We haven’t spoken about the future or feelings etc since our last relate session at the start of April.

Andrew Writes

Congratulations, you’re doing really well, working on yourself has really helped and the signs are really good.  However, remember this is the age of uncertainty and that’s good – because it buys you time to sort this out.

It seems your problem at the moment is that you need to say “I love you” and get reassurance.  However, she needs time to believe everything could be OK.  So what are you going to do?  Have a look again at Love Languages in I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You. It’s obvious that you use affectionate words but what is her love language?

Next time you feel the need to say “I love you”, instead of using the words, express yourself in the way she would appreciate.  For example, doing something for your child or children or acts of service or arranging quality time together.

If you are overcome with love, instead of telling her, write it down.  Keep a blog or write a letter that you don’t send but at least that way you can get it out of your system, and maybe at some point in the future you can show her all these letters.  But whatever you do, don’t say anything, otherwise you’ll undo all your good work.

I have read at least three of your books so far “ILYB”  “MWDLMA” and “HCIETYA” and whilst they have been helpful to me I am still in a horrible position.  The main problem I have is that nowhere can I find a scenario that relates to my situation.  All the books I’ve read (I have also read other peoples) refer to resolving problems and arguments but my wife and I don’t have any such problems.

I will try to summarise a very complicated and long story into a short one.  About 4 years ago a friend of mine approached my wife to instigate an affair.  My wife is a very flirty outward, almost attention seeking, woman who does come over to men as being “up for it” for want of a better expression.  Whenever we are out she is surrounded by men like bees to a honeypot (she is also very attractive which helps of course).  He obviously thought that he had a shot at a “bit on the side” as he too is married with a family.  She told him she loved me and that she didn’t want to meet and then in a state of shock contacted me to tell me what had happened.  She asked me not to contact him and said she would deal with the problem to which I reluctantly and stupidly agreed.

For a while there was a series of text and phone conversations that she told me about whereby she told him that nothing was going to happen until one day I discovered she had contacted him and not only didn’t tell me but actually avoided telling me.  At this stage the picture obviously had changed and I could no longer wait for her to deal with the situation and confronted them both.  He apologised and said it would never happen again and stressed that nothing had happened other than conversations.  My wife at this point came out with the “ILYB” statement for the first time, however it was agreed we would try to sort things out.

Unfortunately over the following three years they did begin a full blown affair where they met up regularly and whilst never had full intercourse she did regularly perform sexual acts for him.  During this time our relationship appeared to go through highs and lows which I can now relate to the fact that the affair was broken off by him on several occasions because he wanted to do “the right thing”.  I assume the lower points in our relationship would equate to the times when the affair was rekindled.

During this time I assumed the problems were just due to “ILYB” until eventually her behaviour became so obvious that I started to look more closely and the confronted her.  At this time I did not believe he was involved as we had spoken, I believed him when he said it wouldn’t happen again, I had forgiven him and we had continued to be friends, although never in quite the same way.  However it did turn out to be him and once again I had to confront him, this time with no possibility of forgiveness.

This was over a year ago and my wife is still here in body if not in spirit.  Since the affair was ended she has refused point blank to accept what she did was wrong and will apparently never apologise for it, although she has apologised for the pain that it has caused.  For months and months she pined after this man, lying in bed crying if we happened to drive past him in the opposite direction and had caught a glimpse of him and I know she has told a friend on several occasions she has had to fight the urge to email him.

As for us, We just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary,  we get on really well, we are such good friends and do lots of things together. We have always had a very active and excellent sex life, although this has changed somewhat lately.  Prior to the affair we were one of those inseparable couples who would never dream of not doing things together.  This was a two way thing and not at all one sided, she would always want to come with me to things that weren’t of real interest to her just to be together. If she went anywhere she would always ask me to come.  Life was on the whole very good.  Even now externally things seem fine, she is happy and chirpy we cuddle a lot and still do everything together, we don’t argue and the only times things become awkward are when this subject comes up.

She doesn’t really ever want to talk or discuss the situation but still feels there is something missing and that it’s not fair that she stays.  I believe she has decided to go but is waiting until after we go on holiday in July.  We tried to have counselling but  after a couple of individual sessions the Councillor thought we shouldn’t have couples sessions as we were not yet both looking for the same outcome.  I wanted to fix things but my wife just wanted to discoverer if she wanted to stay or not.  My wife says that she wished she could sort things out but she still can’t bring herself to say she wants to try and fix things so we are stuck in horrible limbo where I want to correct whatever went wrong and I can’t seem to get her to want to try…, although she insists she is trying very hard !!!

I am so confused and lost, I’m trying so hard to keep this from our children who are not young but still live at home and would be devastated if she leaves as of course would I.

I am afraid I have failed to convey my story in a short message and still have only scraped the surface of it but to summarise, We had a happy life, my wife had an affair, the affair was ended although I believe she didn’t want it to, she is not remorseful for having the affair, she feels that she doesn’t love me properly (probably because it doesn’t feel like the affair) we don’t ague or fight, we enjoy many of the same things, we are a good team.  She never wants to discuss anything (although is constantly updating her girl friend with information) she says she would like things to get better and that she has been trying very hard but can’t go to our councillor and tell her she wants to try so we are unable to even discuss things in a safe neutral environment.

I understand you may not have time to answer me but I am so desperate I would be happy to make some kind of payment for your time.  Our councillor gave me the impression she did not want to see me alone anymore but offered to refer me to someone else because she felt I needed support, I don’t really understand why.  I declined as there is only one person I want to discuss this with now and that is my wife.  She did tell my wife she would be happy to see her again but so far she has not taken up the offer.

I will do anything (reasonable and legal) to win her back but she is unable or just refuses to tell me what is wrong I have no idea how to start.

Please help me!

ps…  I think over the last year I have made every possible mistake you mention in your books!  And probably some more too !

Andrew Writes

I think your wife is mourning for her “lost love”.  She is full of guilt and shame and that’s why she doesn’t want to talk to you.  The guilt and shame will also probably make her build the affair up into something it wasn’t “I was swept away by a wave of feelings” or “we were right for each other” because that makes her feel less guilty.  In some way she wasn’t responsible for her feelings.  She was taken over by them.  The alternative is just too bleak to think about i.e. I had a cheap little affair.

None of this helps you move forward because trying to convince her that this was not the love of her life will just make you into the enemy.  Underneath all of this I wonder if she’s lost her purpose in life.  If you’ve been together for 20 years, my guess is that the children are growing up and they don’t need her so much.  If she’s a very outgoing, flirty sort of person I bet that appearances are very important to her.  How does she feel about being in her 40′s?  She really needs to take time to find a new reason for getting up in the morning.  However, this is really some thing that she’s got to do for herself, you can’t force her into it.  You can be supportive, available to talk to but if you keep pestering her all the time she will keep you at arms’ length.

So I’m afraid we’re still in the age of uncertainty.  I think you need to keep doing positive things and communicate properly rather than avoid arguments.  Please look at the section on assertiveness in My Wife Doesn’t Love Me Any More. In effect, I think you should work on yourself, get support from a counsellor to keep you strong and positive, so that you give your wife enough time to recover from this affair and see things more clearly.  Finally, I’d like you to start looking after yourself too, you’ve been through a terrible time and need to be kind to yourself.

Good luck.

Ever since she proposed I have been questioning our relationship.  Is she the right one?  I also had my 31st birthday and started thinking that I didn’t want to waste time.  All of my friends are married with kids and that is what I want as well.  But I feel like I should not be questioning it, when I am sitting next to my fiancé.  I also tend to be a bit OCD so the thoughts circle and circle and have been driving me nuts.  I have gotten into a bad depression and have a lot of anxiety because of it.  I have almost ended the relationship several time because I just want to be happy again.  But I don’t want to be without her.  I no longer want to live on my own because I like our lives together.  When I am at work, I get anxious and think about everything but at the same time I can’t wait to go home and sit with her on the couch and cuddle.  We never argue and have a lot of fun together.  I always tell people that I want her to be the one, that I wish she was the one.  So why can’t I just accept that she might be a move on and enjoy my life with her?  When I am with her, I feel like something is missing.  I want to feel passion and that spark.  I even pray for it on a daily basis.  But at the same time how can I feel anything, if all I do is think about our relationship?

I have literally spent the last 6 months torturing myself.  I keep on doing research looking for reasons for our relationship to work out.  If I didn’t love her, would I be fighting so hard for it to work?  I enjoy cuddling, and holding her and having those types of intimate moments.  I just can’t stop thinking about how I felt in the past with other people and don’t want to be settling.  Also, we don’t really spend much time apart.  She lives 1.5 hours away from my family and friends so if we want to see them, it becomes an all day event.  I moved into her house a little over a year ago.  However, I haven’t moved all of my stuff into her house.  I think it is because I didn’t know if it would work out.  She also was trying to sell her house so I didn’t want to clutter it up with all my stuff.  The rest of my belongings are either in storage or my parents house.  So I don’t really have a true space for myself.

We have never had the chance to really miss each other and she doesn’t like to be alone. I sometimes go to my parents house so that I can have some “me” time and be around my stuff.  I would most of the time extend my time there also.  Which would make my partner upset because she missed me and didn’t want to be alone.  The last few times I have been home I would spend all of my time crying that maybe she isn’t the one and blah blah blah.  When I watch T.V. or even see a couple, I think “oh they married or are together because they felt a spark they feel in love.  Then I feel bad for never having felt that way.

Recently, since I have been thinking about ending things so that I can feel better, I have not wanted to spend any time alone at my parents house.  I want to be with her.  But when I am, I feel anxiety because she is around and I am thinking, thinking, thinking.  I am ruining what is right in front of me all for the sake of hopes for some dumb spark.  My relationships that had the spark and passion before were actually awful relationships.  They didn’t treat me well at all, the spark blinded me from their true essence.  My partner right now is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  She is kind, considerate, loving and would do anything for me.  She is absolutely wonderful.  I feel bad because if someone is so loving towards me shouldn’t I feel something more?  Maybe, I am scared of letting her in completely because she is so good to me and could potentially be the one.  maybe that is why I have never been “sure” because I have known from the beginning that I was her soul-mate.  In the past I was the pursuer, which probably made it fun but those people were unavailable or we didn’t share an emotional connection.  In this relationship I am probably this distancer, afraid of something good.

Please help me! Six months later I am still researching and fighting for our relationship.  This is when I stumbled upon your site and found your books.  I have started reading I love you but… I am lost and I want more than anything to have a wonderful life with her.  I don’t want anyone else.

Andrew Writes

Your past relationships have been fiery, passionate and burnt themselves out.  This relationship is built on friendship, stability and consideration.  Therefore, you wonder if there is enough passion to make the relationship last in the long term.  It’s almost like passion is your insurance policy to be sure this person is right for you.  This is particularly common if your parents divorced and you had a ringside view for what can go wrong and you’re determined not to make the same mistakes.

However, from your email address, I’m assuming that you’re a lesbian and this could have an extra dimension.  Young gay and lesbians know from a young age that society (and often their parents) do not entirely approve of their sexuality and therefore to combat this unspoken shame, they often feel they need to over- compensate  – to prove everybody wrong – and that their relationships need to be “fabulous”.  This is theory of Alan Downs who is a therapist and has written a book called The Velvet Rage which is especially for gay men (but I think is equally helpful for gay women).  Does his theory of needing a ‘perfect’ and ‘all singing and all dancing’ relationship ring any bells for you?

Ultimately, what counts in making a relationship go the whole way are skills not passion.  The good news is that you can learn new skills; I explain more in Help Your Partner Say Yes and Resolve Your Differences.  Ultimately, if you can talk honestly with your partner about problems like this, it’s a good sign that your relationship has got legs.

So, read the books, have a good think, discuss everything with your partner and take it from there.

Good luck

Ask Andrew

I’m afraid it’s horribly common for men to have affairs while their wives are pregnant.  Unfortunately, they panic and instead of discussing their fears, they bury them because ‘I’m not certain about this child‘ is going to go down like a lead balloon. Unfortunately, when we bury our feelings we often get increasingly unhappy.  Another woman promises to magic away all of the pain and she seems to have no needs whatsoever beyond making you happy. Meanwhile, your wife who has hundreds of needs! (I know this is all fantasy and wish fulfilment and ‘life doesn’t work like that’ but it will help you understand why he has sunk so low or, to put it more kindly, felt so desperate.)

Now your husband has been discovered and he feels terrible about it.   He promises to give up the other woman but she keeps contacting him and he feels terrible for letting her down.  Guess what?  He gets himself in deeper and deeper into trouble.

You’re right, you can’t be expected to pick up the pieces and move on.  You have to concentrate on your baby.  He will realise that the other woman is not the answer, but putting pressure on him will just push him away, or into the arms of the other woman.  When everything is a bit calmer – after the baby is born – and you’ve recovered from the whole experience, the two of you will need to understand why communication broke down.  Why can’t he talk to you?  Why can’t he express his fears?  Look at my book Resolve Your Differences.  I wonder if you’ve become swallowed up by being a mother and you need to remember that you’re a wife too.  I have a book coming out in September that’s all about this.  It’s called I Love You, but You Always Put Me Last: How to childproof your marriage. I think this book will explain what has gone wrong and help you rebuild.

In the meantime, improve the communication, live from day to day and enjoy your baby.  It will get better.

In 2009 again his company went under and he became a changed person. Very isolated, mean with me all the time, on purpose missing my birthday, anniversary anything good. I thought he took very hard the failure of the company and I put up with all the emotional abuse. For 2+ years he was out of work, never made an actual effort. He wanted me always to take care of our financial matters. I used all my personal money, sold all my jewels, lost our houses and by mid 2011 have lost everything. We were on social assistant and got a room in my daughters house to live in for free. I was still holding on to the idea, I was there for good and bad days!!!!

At the beginning of 2012 he got a job as a sales person. He had to travel alot and everywhere. I had to borrow money for him to “Finance” this job. He never brought any good income from his commissions ($13,000 for a whole year), but he was away 5 day of the week. I was pensioned thinking he is doing his best. Until this Oct everything came out. From late 2010 he was always on porno sites, buying porno movies, masturbating, checking every ill sexual web site “graiglist”. In late 2011 went back to online dating sites (ashley madison, pof ..) His excuse, he wanted sex he could not find with me. As per him he went out 2 dates that did not advance, he looked for couples sex and sent pictures of his body parts .. Bottom line per him “he did not do anything”. Finally he came with the excuse he was “possessed by Satan” it was not him. Satan is my enemy. Once more it was not his fault. I am seeking my head.

He apologized because it was the right thing to do but I do not think he believes it as “Satan is to blame” !!!!

My whole world has collapsed. He used to be a very serious person, shy, respectful, had class, very educated, smart. I think I am with someone else.
It is six months since I found out everything. This time I will not rush to leave him.

We are in our 52 years of age. I strongly believe he is going through midlife crisis in a very bad way.

From your experiance is there any hope? Will he ever realize what has happened to him? Or the best thing is just leave him?

Andrew Writes

When your husband’s business went down for the second time, his self-esteem completely collapsed.  Men’s identities are tied up with success and providing for their families.  Sadly, men aren’t socialised to ask for help so they soldier on bravely.  Not surprisingly, they start feeling worse and worse.  The only way to keep going is to “self medicate” to feel better.  This is where pornography comes in – because it gives as a warm buzz and takes our mind off our problems.  Unfortunately, some men need a bigger and bigger hit and before long they are on adult dating sites and trying to hook up for threesomes with married couples.  I discuss this problem in Make Love Like a Prairie Vole because it seems like your husband has moved from “using” porn to “abusing” it and he is at risk of having addition problems too.

Let’s get to your central question: Is there any hope?  I’m going to say “yes” but he’s going to have to realise he’s got a problem rather than just thinking he’s possessed by Satan.  So what should you do?  Although you’re angry, and that’s fine, taking it out on him will only make him feel ashamed, hopeless, terrible and low.  And how does he feel better, even though it will make him feel more shame in the morning?  Yes, you’ve guessed it, pornography.  And the whole circle starts again.

I would look at yourself and your contribution to the marital problems because it’s always six of one and half a dozen of the other.  I explain all of this in I Love you, but I’m Not in Love with You.  This is a much better way of moving forward, rather than just putting this down to his mid-life crisis because that puts all the blame on him and leaves you with no responsibility whatsoever for the state of your marriage. I know this is tough when he’s been so hurtful, but it closes your eyes to the hurtful things you’ve done to him (over the years).

Sometimes taking the pressure off, and changing the way you react, can change the dynamic in the relationship.  At this point he can open up about his unhappiness and the two of you can discuss how to move forward.  Maybe he needs to get help himself.  Maybe the two of you need to find a neutral third party where you can both talk about the misery.  It might be the end result is you do have to leave him, but it is much better to really get to the bottom of this problem, rather than just getting divorced and moving on like you did last time round.

So, a really tough one and I wish you all the best.

Andrew writes

You’ve fallen for one of the most dangerous myths about love: it should be passionate, it should sweep us off our feet and, therefore, relationships are easy and they don’t require any skills.  It might be the case in the beginning when you are overwhelmed by your hormones and what I call limerence - but this doesn’t last for ever.  I explain more about this in I Love You but I’m Not In Love With You.  Fortunately, you’re open to challenging the myths about love.  You ask about whether you can lean to love.  Great question! I’m not certain that you can learn to love, but you can learn to communicate better, have realistic expectations and love will follow on from there.

So, where do you start?  Normally, when somebody is described as “kind” it normally means he agrees with everything you want – which is nice on one level but is actually rather dull.  Instead of being passive, your husband needs to learn to be assertive.  By this I mean, you can ask for something, he can say no and then you can negotiate.  Assertiveness is one of the key skills in love, rather than “if he loves me he will know what I want”.  I explain more about assertiveness in Resolve Your Differences and My Wife Doesn’t Love Me Any More.

The next skill you need is to know how to balance, challenge and acceptance.  We need to accept out partner, otherwise how can we love them?  However, if this is a blank acceptance without any challenge it ends up being rather boring.  How could you challenge yourselves?  Well, I’d like you to put back the sexual spark in your relationship and make it more adventurous and in this way challenge both of you.  I have lots of ideas about this in Make Love Like A Prairie Vole.

My third idea is that you could learn about yourself and what you need, rather than expecting him to know.  And then we’re back to assertiveness. You can ask for those things you truly need.  If you want to learn more about yourself, I would look at Learn to Love Yourself Enough.

So what is love?  Love is more than just the absence of problems between the two of you, you need connections too.  I’ve given you three strategies to help keep love alive.

Andrew writes:

I think ‘rough time’ probably underestimates the amount of pain and probably shame you’re going through at the moment. So I want to offer you some hope and then some advice. First of all, some hope. I’ve cut and pasted a review for my book ‘How can I ever trust you again?’ from amazon.co.uk from someone who was in exactly the same position as you…..

“It’s taken me two years to post this review. I know it’s long, but think of it as two reviews in one. At first, I would have written purely as the Discovered. Now I am writing both as Discovered and Discoverer. To both this book is an absolute godsend.

Here is the email I sent Andrew Marshall a year ago.

This is not a question but a huge, huge thank you.

My tripod affair came to light and ended last year under particularly painful
circumstances. Your book “How can I ever trust you again?” saved our marriage.
I can honestly say that despite and because of a very tough year (which was also
strangely good) our relationship has become stronger now than it has ever been;
we are very deeply in love, and at last enjoying the limerence that we never
kicked off with.

Your guidance about looking for why I had the affair and what it meant to me
enabled us to identify and change what was missing between us; and the knowledge
that so many of the emotions we were experiencing were normal didn’t make them
hurt less, but it made them easier to bear. I especially appreciated your
explanation of the differences between affair love and married love (bubble
vs real world), the types of people who are more likely to have affairs (afraid
to risk conflict… one of the things we were missing was arguments), and the
section on buried bodies rising.

I don’t want to sound like a cheerleader. I know that I’ve hurt my husband
greatly, and I never want to do that again. I am massively grateful that he
gave me a second chance. We’re making it work; your book was enormously
important in getting us started.

Once again, thank you.

A year later we feel very much the same in our marriage: it continues to grow stronger; and although we’ve hit rough times around anniversaries, they get easier to deal with.

However, I recently learned that the third party had been dating yet another woman at a time when he was either still married, or seeing me on the side, or both. After admitting to my husband “yes, you were right all along”, I thought about the affair that the third party had had before me, this other woman, his insistence that I hide every trace of our affair, marks on his shoulders, smells on the bed, and above all the silences about his life outside our little bubble; and came to the conclusion that he always was and probably always will be a serial philanderer. In short, he is the kind of Don Juan of whom we are advised to steer well clear. Relationships – Marshall advises – may be mendable after other types of affair. A Juan or Juanita’s behaviour won’t change and they are best avoided.

I discovered this somewhat late. Nonetheless I am still very glad to have “How can I ever trust you again?” to hand, with its guidance about different types of affairs and assessing the health of a relationship. I can see the third party more clearly now for what he was, and what our affair (and his others) probably meant to him: nothing like as much as the pain they caused to others. It is and always was good to have the affirmation that post-affair attempts at relationships with the third party rarely work out, and I’ve got the support to see that the relationship wasn’t worth saving. I also know that my husband and I made the right decision two years ago, to stay together and rebuild our marriage. That knowledge has grown and grown; now I know it even more.

In the first chapter, Marshall writes that with each step towards recovery you will learn a new skill. “These skills will not only help with the fall-out from infidelity but also with life in general.” And it’s true. The biggest lesson for me is that silence is fatal. Silence allowed the third party to have many affairs. The habits of silence that my husband and I picked up in childhood stopped us from addressing our difficulties in the first place. Our families “dealt” with emotional problems by keeping silent and pretending they didn’t exist; we did just the same and look where it got us.

I wish I had followed the good advice in this book and come completely clean sooner than I did. It could have saved us months of painful uncertainty. And I am firmly resolved to never again accept silence and dishonesty in my life. I’ve been living with this new creed for over a year now. It’s scary and it pushes family boundaries; and it feels good. We wouldn’t have got to this point either personally or in our marriage without this well-written prod. I am still massively grateful, and I’m keeping this life-changing book.”

I hope this has helped you see that there is a way forward.

Finally, I want to leave with some understanding about how difficult it is to recover from abusive relationship and the risk of creating the same dynamic all over again – but from a different position. I cover the abuse triangle in ‘Make Love Like a Prairie Vole’ – and the position of abuser (your ex-husband), victim (you) and rescuer (your second husband). Sadly it has shifted round, with you being the abuser (unfaithful) and your second husband being the victim (cheated on) and these ex boyfriends being the rescuer (of sorts). I would also look at ‘Are you right for me?’ – another of my books as these will also help you understand the dynamics about what’s really going on.

So a lot to take on board, I know, but this could be a turning point in your life – like for the other person who wrote to me – be brave and honest with yourself and life can be great.

Last winter our relationship stagnated and we sat in front of the TV and did not communicate much. We did not seem to have much to talk about. He used to watch sport on TV and on his laptop, I used to go to the bedroom to watch my programmes. We did not go out together or share any hobbies together.

I returned to work in December 2012 whilst my husband stayed at home. He did many things around the house cleaning shopping etc but says I never showed any appreciation, which I admit I didn’t, I just took it for granted. He loved to play golf and would play 3-4 times per week, he would visit a friend of his once a week for a couple of hours. He says that one day I said that he should not spend any money because I was keeping him, I believe I did say something like this but it was just banter, we used to banter a lot. He would say that I could not cook because I burn everything. He says that that my remark made him feel worthless. He seems to have taken the remark the wrong way.

Just prior to Christmas my husband began to experience erection problems, we did not talk in depth about this but he did go to the doctor and there was no physical problem.

He became 60 in January 2013 but he refused to celebrate his birthday. He did not appear to be unhappy at all just lost any real enthusiasm for things.
Six weeks before we had an argument and he left he started to sleep in the spare room because he said I snored and kept him awake.

We had an argument one morning and he forcibly pushed me away from him, he did not hurt me, I retaliated by shouting that I did not love him, had not loved him for a long time and that I wanted him to leave. Well he left, the next day he rang and said he wanted to collect some of his things, I packed a case for him, he collected it and he left.  He has not returned home since, other than to speak to me about divorce. He has been living with his sister. He says he does not love me anymore but cares for me. He says there is no-one else he just does not want to be married anymore, he wants to be on his own.  I am sure that there is no-one else. He is adamant that he will not be coming back and has told everyone he speaks to that our marriage is over.

He is moving into a flat on his own next month.  We have spoken very briefly about his decision and he has sighted lots of things that he believes have been wrong in our marriage for over 20 years, it appears that it is all my fault. He has accused me of running his life, being domineering, not showing him any love other than by buying him things, putting him at the bottom of the pile for attention and that on occasions he only made love to me out of frustration. I cannot believe that our marriage has been bad for so long, he does not remember any of the good things. We have been through lots of upsets in our marriage. In particular in the last 5 years my Dad and Mum died, I was unwell and had to attend hospital, he had an operation on his leg and developed a DVT, problems with our son which we sorted out.

He said one day that he was concerned that I was going to die and leave him just as we able to have “our time” in retirement.  We did talk about what we were going to do in retirement like play golf together but we did not actually do anything about making these things happen. I recently asked him why he seemed to not want me to play golf with him and he said his time on the golf course was his sanctuary.  There are so many things that he appears to have stored up over the years and never spoken about although I did ask him on a couple of occasions whether he was happy and whether he wanted to be with me and he just said “I am still here aren’t I” and that was the end of the conversation.

I am sure that he loved me last year because of the wonderful things he did for my 60th birthday and this Christmas he put so much thought into my Christmas presents remembering things I had mentioned months ago. But he says it has been going on for a long time and that I was only “putting on a face” and did not really love him.

I love him dearly, he is the true love of my life.  We are both retired (although he has now returned to work) and  together have no financial difficulties and could enjoy a really good retirement together. None of this means anything to him he is willing to put us both on the breadline.  He says he is happier and less stressed now that his is away from me.
I admit we both let our marriage become mundane and we did not talk or discuss our feelings with each other. When we argued just before he left, I only said the things I did because I had felt rejected, old and unattractive to him anymore and it all just blew up and I said the most hurtful thing to him that I could.

Since he left he has been living with his sister and is now moving to a flat on his own.  I am attending counselling and have asked him to attend but as yet he has not done so.  I am afraid to try to persuade him to do anything in case I push him further away.  I have just completely backed off over the last couple of weeks and given him the space that he seems to want.

What should I do, how can I help him to see that we do have a future together and that it could be so much better now that I understand his needs. I want him to also understand my needs, we both seem to be having the same difficulties but not communicating.

Do you think he really does not love me and wants to end our marriage after 38 years or do you thing that we may be able to save it and make it better than ever before?

I truly do love him and want him to be happy.

Andrew Writes

Of course this marriage can be saved, the problem is that you’ve hurt him a huge amount.  I know you haven’t meant to, but he’s taken a lot of nasty knocks.  For men, our identity is very much tied up with how potent we feel.  So, if he’s having erectile problems, this is going to make him feel really bad about himself.  If on top of that, he feels that all he’s a drudge and unappreciated, he’s going to be in a dark place at the moment.

Try and imagine that every word he says is true.  Have you run his life?  Have you been domineering?  I’m sure you haven’t wanted to be but from where he’s standing, that might be how you’ve come across.  Look at my book My Wife Doesn’t Love Me Anymore.  Because I think you have fallen into several of the traps that open up when a partner comes clean and admits their feelings.  One of them is saying “yes, but” in this case “it wasn’t like that for me”. Although from where you’re standing everything has been nowhere near as bad but, for him, this is not really listening to him.  It’s also denying his feelings.  This book will explain how to make a fulsome apology, to truly listen to him and then you can begin to work on your marriage.

I would look at I Love You But I’m Not in Love with You and Make Love Like a Prairie Vole because you’ll need to have a sexually satisfying relationship again and there’s no reason why his erectile problems can’t be addressed and there’s lots of advice in the book on that subject too.  So be positive, all the problems have come up to the surface and you’re going to do something about them.