Dear Wayward Wives …

To the Wayward Wives out there,

I do not judge you. I understand what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling. Perhaps your husband has neglected you for years, leaving you feeling lonely and empty and taken for granted. Or, perhaps, he is verbally abusive — maybe he puts you down, or blows up at you over the littlest things, and your heart just can’t take it anymore.

And, when nothing good seems to be coming your way, you met him: the sweet, caring, thrilling guy who listens. Maybe you talked to him about your marriage woes, or maybe you escaped with him with exciting conversations that distract you from your problems. Whatever the case, he became a dear friend. He actually listened. He actually admired you, and everything you must go through. He cares. Eventually, your friendship turned to love, and you would do anything for him — perhaps even give your body to him.

I understand that. I was there.

Now I implore you to listen to me for a bit. None of it is worth it. That may not make sense, but it’s true.

The road you are going down feels so right, but it leads to destruction. Your children will suffer. You see, the marriage you have with their father is the foundation for their entire world. And when their foundation crumbles, their whole world falls a part. Sure, you could get them counseling. But that will never repair the damage that is done. They will continue to suffer into adulthood, and they may even choose to cut you out of their lives because it is too painful to be around you.

They need you to be a strong woman and put their needs before your own. They need you to end your affair and repair your marriage.

Your own life is suffering, as well. If guilt is not already eating you up, it will and your health will go downhill. Do you feel the gnawing knot in your stomach yet? It just about killed me. That, plus the high anxiety, stole countless hours of sleep from me, which affected my ability to live life to the fullest. And trust me, if you were to divorce your husband now and start living the single life, life will become A LOT HARDER for you. Shuffling kids around, trying to raise them alone, living on only your own income … Your boyfriend will eventually leave you, and you will be alone.

And your husband … I know you do not care much about him right now. But even he, no matter what he has done to you, doesn’t deserve the pain this affair inflicts on him. I have talked to people who have suffered through the death of a child AND the betrayal of their spouses, and they say that the betrayal was by far the worst thing that has ever happened to them. Can you imagine anything being worse than the death of your child? That’s what your husband is going through. The father of your children doesn’t deserve that.

But, you are not doomed to a life of misery. I promise you that you can have a beautiful life, deeply in love with your best friend. A life so romantic and great and happy you can hardly stand it. It’s not with your Other Man. You CAN have that fairy tale with your husband.

If you could have that with your husband, would you be interested? If you knew that he would start treating you the way he should, if he wouldn’t hurt you, if you knew he could love you beyond your wildest dreams? If you knew he would be your secure, comforting friend that you could rely on — would you be interested?

Because he can. Your marriage doesn’t have to end — You CAN have that fairy tale. We can show you the plan to turn things around.

Interested?

Our top 5

As we begin a new year, here are our top 5 most visited posts in 2014: 

Did these blog posts help you? Do you have a marriage question they didn’t address? Email us, or post in the comments below! We would love to help you.

How to recover from an affair

An affair is the most traumatic thing that can happen to a marriage. The road to recovery is very precarious — one wrong step and you’ve slipped off the path, and your recovery will fail. Dr. Harley says that your marriage will only be a crippled version of what your marriage was BEFORE the affair.

To avoid that tragedy, specific steps must be taken. The temptation is often to cherry-pick from the steps. To many people, the steps seem excessive, or unrealistic. But, in reality, all good marriages live by these rules. You don’t want to go back to a “normal” marriage — you know, the one filled with independence and privacy.  That “normal” marriage is what set you up for an affair in the first place. It may be how a lot of people live, but that lifestyle does not make for a good marriage. You want to, instead, imitate the marriages that thrive, where the couple is deeply in love. 

Dr. Harley is not only a clinical psychologist, but he and his wife have been married for over 50 years and are just as in love with each other as they were in the beginning. Theirs is a marriage whose rules would be good to imitate.

Markos and I did. I only wish we had done it sooner.

So, no cherry-picking, okay? We’re not about having a “normal” marriage, here. We want you to actually RECOVER from the affair — this means more than just get past it. We want you to have a marriage that thrives, that is romantic, that is the most important and fulfilling thing in your life. Just like we have.

I know it sounds like an impossible thing to have right now. Whether you’re the betrayed spouse or the wayward spouse, neither one of you can imagine ever trusting or loving the other again.

But, it’s possible. Here are the very specific steps that must be followed to reach that goal:

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.

Checklist for How Affairs Should End
 The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

 The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover again.

 The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

 The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover:

 Block potential communication with the lover (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

 Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

 Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

 Spend leisure time together.

 Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

 Avoid overnight separation.

 Allow technical accountability.

 Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67 

Take the above list and go through it. What has been done? What is left to do?

Having trouble understanding why these steps are necessary?
Are you the victim of an affair?
Do you need helping ending your affair?
Need encouragement to take the right steps?
We can help. Email us.

My Hosea

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.” Hosea 2:14

The book of Hosea is a bittersweet story of the love God has for his adulterous wife, Israel. And how he pursued her to win her back.

It has come to hold a special place in my heart.

My name is Prisca, and I am Markos’ wife. That sentence alone gives my heart a chill because, you see, my story is also bittersweet. When I first met Markos, I was easily swept off my feet. He was handsome beyond a dream and his deep, base voice stole my heart. And he was so easy to talk to — I would spend hours upon hours talking to him when we were together, and, when apart, dreaming about what I would I would say to him when I saw him once more.   I wanted him, to be held by him, to be loved by him. And what was even more perfect, he wanted me. He pursued me.

It was a fairy tale romance.

People would tell me that the love would one day fade, but I didn’t believe them. I was horrified that anybody would ever suggest such a thing to me — We were different. We weren’t just infatuated — we had a deep, romantic connection, and I just knew it would last forever.

As if cursed (the way fairy tales seem to always go), that love began to “fade” within the first year of our marriage. We started fighting. We neglected each other. We lived independent lifestyles. I can remember the first day Markos actually yelled at me — it tore a ragged hole in my fairy tale romance, and a small seed of hate was planted in the debris. I began to believe those naysayers from before our marriage. Love just didn’t last and I mourned this loss.

Markos started taking me to marriage counselors. He still believed that our love could be restored. I saw him as foolish, and hated being forced to tell my story to a complete stranger over and over again. We left each session, more bitter and torn apart than when we arrived.

Then Markos introduced me to Marriage Builders. He looked like an excited boy, finding a map that would lead him to the greatest treasure imaginable. I believe my first words to him were: “Yeah right, I’m not going to talk to some guy on the phone about sex!” He quietly started working the program on his own. I noticed a major change in him — and began to wonder if maybe he weren’t as big a jerk as I thought him to be.

He persuaded me to go the the Marriage Builders weekend in Minneapolis. The biggest selling point was that if I were to go to the sessions with him, he would take me shopping at the Mall of America. I didn’t relish the idea of sitting through anymore marriage sessions, but he knew how to entice me and I went. The sessions actually intrigued me for a change. And we spent the whole weekend having fun, like two teenagers dating each other for the first time. It was a breath of fresh air.

We learned about each others emotional needs (I so desperately wanted conversation), and the lovebusters that we believed would end our marriage if not dealt with (markos still had regular angry outbursts). For a while, I had hope.

But, back home, the fights continued. I continued to feel neglected. And his account in my lovebank dwindled deep down into the red. Six months after we went to the seminar, I was crying to him because he would not talk to me. In an angry outburst he said “Find somebody else to talk to!” That was it. The moment I first hated him. I hated him. I finally, really hated him.

I retreated from him. Dr. Harley calls this the state of withdrawal. I no longer cared for him. I no longer wanted him to meet my emotional needs for me. If he tried to, I only hated him more for the effort.

But I was terribly lonely. I turned to Facebook, of all things. I’m not the kind of person that has a whole lot of friends — I’m an introvert, and enjoy a small group of close friends. But on Facebook, I could be different. It was so much easier to be outgoing and chat with a variety of “friends.” Markos and I had just recently “joined” our accounts on Facebook, too, and so now my pool of friends to talk with had more than doubled. I started chatting with church members, and family, and Markos’ male friends.

Facebook started to consume my days. When I was happy, I posted. When I was sad, I posted. When Markos said something to me that was particularly cruel, I turned to Facebook. It became a haven.

And there was one man in particular that I looked forward talking to. He was sweet. He was funny. He liked to listen to me. He thought I was smart. We enjoyed the same things. He let me talk about my kids. I began anticipating notes from him. I was in a whirlwind that I thought I would never experience again — the giddy feeling of being in love. The thought of Markos seeing these interactions made me extremely nervous, so I started hiding my trail. I knew Markos could not access Facebook from work, even from our joint account. So I was able to spend my days having fun with my “friend,” as long as I was sure to delete all messages before Markos got home.

I justified this. Markos had told me that I should find someone else to talk to. So I did. He told me to do it. Right?

I began neglecting my kids. All I wanted was HIM. I was consumed. It felt so wonderful and special. I felt special again. I took my wedding ring off that Christmas, with the intent of never putting it back on.

Meanwhile, Markos was trying to meet my emotional needs. He was still following the Marriage Builders program and he had taken an anger management class to learn to eliminate his anger. But nothing was working. He was spinning his wheels and didn’t know why — he didn’t know that I was in love with someone else.

I had no intention of ever telling him, either. I may have been drugged up on the allure of the other man (OM, as they are often called), but I was smart enough to know that Markos was the one providing the roof over my head and the food on my table. I saw this as a sweet arrangement: I would let Markos keep providing for my physical needs, and for the needs of my children, but that was it. I would go to OM for any other need I had.

Our messages turned to sexual flirting. I justified it even more: Markos had told me to find someone else. He was getting what he asked for. No wrong there. Right?

But guilt was beginning to build: Part of me knew there was no future with OM. I would look at my kids every morning, and start to cry. I knew I was hurting them. I didn’t care worth a flip about Markos, but I knew my kids were suffering because of me. But I continued to seek OM out. I could not seem to stop — and when I sat down at my computer, I had NO DESIRE to stop.

I once suggested that Markos turn to porn or visit a prostitute. This would only justify what I was doing myself. No one would blame me if they ever found out what he was doing. Right? He didn’t fall for that.

Markos still pursued me. That was getting to be pretty annoying. I just wanted to be left alone, to do my own thing, and not have the constant reminder that he was there.

Soon after, a friend emailed me. She had also been through Marriage Builders, and wanted to help me with my marriage. Over the course of a month, we talked and I ended up confessing to her what I was doing. She strongly encouraged me to talk to him myself. I spent several days tossing back and forth between confessing and not confessing. Of course, I did not want to talk to Markos: he was a monster. He would be cruel. I hated the thought of giving up OM for my dreadful husband. And I just knew he would probably toss me out. On the other hand, I knew if I didn’t tell him, SHE would. That’s what Marriage Builders people do.

I decided to text him. I figured if he blew up, I could load up the kids and leave before he got home. His first response crumbled my pride. Not because it was full of anger — no, it was surprisingly calm. But he knew the OM’s name. How could he know? I was so careful. I still don’t know how he knew, but he did. I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was. I felt so very small at that point. Naked.

That text was the first step on the real road to recovery for us. He didn’t blow up at me like I expected. He was eerily calm, and that, in its own way, unnerved me.

He didn’t expose me — He did ask me to write a letter to my family and to the elders in my church, confessing what I did . He insisted that I send the letter before a big family birthday party for my daughter. I wanted to wait, but he wanted everyone to know. I did it because I feared that he would divorce me and I would lose my kids, and yes, I was pretty angry about that. I hated him even more, and literally did not speak a word to him for quite some time.

I do not recommend anybody follow our lead in how that was handled — I guarantee you there would have been a lot less resentment and anger to get over if he had just exposed me rather than making me confess to my family. Exposure is therapeutic for the wayward.

After I sent the letter, he came into the room and found me curled up on the bed. He tenderly caressed the tears on my face and kissed me on the forehead. I shuddered. The monster was not being so monstrous, but rather gentle. And it wasn’t fair. I needed him to be hateful, so that I could believe I was really justified. He wasn’t playing his part right.

He took me and the kids to a picnic in the park the day after the birthday party and the letter, and I sat up at the car and sulked and cried while he played with the kids next to the lake.

The day I compared him to OM, and told him how much better OM treated me, he looked me straight in the eyes and said “I will not share you, not even emotionally.” Again, another shudder.

The typical wayward wife will be angry and unremorseful well into recovery. But recovery is still possible — that is, if all contact with OM is cut off. It took me awhile to cut off all contact. I blocked him on Facebook initially, but I was still going to Facebook. That pining for the OM was keeping me triggered, and keeping my lovebank closed to Markos. We eventually shutdown and blocked Facebook completely. This was vital to our recovery.

We adopted the Extraordinary Precautions found in Surviving an Affair on pages 66-67. These were also vital to our recovery. The thing about recovery from something as devastating to a marriage as an affair, the road is very narrow. Each step must be taken carefully, or you will stumble off the road and the marriage will lie in ruin.

I HATED my husband. I loathed him. I tried to trap him into being unfaithful himself. I blamed HIM for my Emotional Affair. He still won me. He relentlessly pursued me. He allured me, and spoke tenderly to me. He went through hell, and put up with all kinds of barbs and stab wounds from me, all to win ME. He saved me. He is my Hosea.

“I will restore to you the years the locusts have stolen …” Joel 2:25