the question i have is describe "aloof"? My ww desire to improve herself seems to becoming at the expense of her doing any recovery work on us. She has taken 4 individual vacations/ workshops over the last 14 months to work on her hobby of energy healing. Refusing to do EMS or going to BAN. She has relapsed 3 times over this period and the after dday did not stop contact for 6 weeks until the AP did. She keeps on insisting that she needs to feel connection. It is her feeling of disconnection that she has said let her go into the affair. Perhaps a blog for what women should be doing to connect after the affair is needed. It seems to me like she wants to go back to what it was before with her freedom to be independent. I feel it was her lack of making time for us that led to much of her feeling of disconnection. She started working out at work, not with me at home, had her own individual hobbies, did not engage with my hobbies or show any interest in calling me during the day at work. All of these still continue and we feel disconnected. Its like she has forgotten what friendship looks like. I have tried several times to move to that place of connection while asking for her to do the work with me. Every time I am met with defensive hostility on how i keep punishing her. How do you bring some one who unwilling into the new season?

Samuel - thank you for sharing your story. I'm an unfaithful, and currently separated - I believe mainly because I brought all 3 of the things you noted - being aloof, downplaying (not owning what I did), and not being fully committed to recovery. All three of those things destroy any sense of safety, and it was ultimately a lack of safety that caused my wife to ask me to leave. I wish I would have found your vlog 8 months ago on D-day, I was a mess, was unempathetic, bitter, and selfabsorbed. I pray daily that my wife will be willing to give me another chance, but I do not deserve it - at this point I'm grateful that as Rick said in his vlog - I'm not dead - so anything short of death is merciful. God bless you for having the courage to put your and Samantha's story out there for the world to see. These AR vlogs are a part of my daily healing - I appreciate your clear - direct style. Sugar coating things helps no one in this process of recovery. Thank you - Jeff (unfaithful)

Christmas Day will be 4 years out from dday 1....there have been about 10 ddays since, the last one occurring this past April....every time I have gotten to a point that I was beginning to let go of the pain, bitterness, and desire for vengeance, another detail would pop up. You say don't carry this into the next phase, but how can I do that if i keep expecting another bomb to go off at any time? We had a huge fight last night, he went back to his usual abusive screaming self when I tried to explain to him that I had been crying all day because it's an anti-versary and 4 years of my life have now been wasted on the pain and bitterness of his 20 year infidelities with his coworker plus a Mexican prostitute he went to while in a business trip in Mexico and we could have been farther along if he had just come clean in the beginning. It just set us back months, if not years, in recovery. I am beginning to think that there will be no new phase for us. My religious convictions prevent me from divorcing, so I have to find a way to move forward. We've taken EMS twice, he took Hope for Healing, and I just signed up for Harboring Hope for the second time since the first time I took it I didn't have full disclosure....how do I let go of all pain bitterness etc when I can't shake the feeling that there is more I don't know and he is still getting very angry when I try to talk about it? Thanks for your help Samuel.