Experts: Help me save my marriage

Field Reports & Anecdotal Experience Men's Pheromone Advice & Field Reports
21

I dropped back in to check on this thread. As I said, it bears a little resemblance to my entry here.

I do like the well roundedness of the advice you are getting. I’ll say that there are many roads to success and your approach would do well to take some from all of them.

Reinventing yourself is a great option, recapture what drew you both together if you can. Reading up on relationship strategies is never a bad idea and professional help should be considered as well.

As to using products here to help, that is about the best they can do - help. I have described many times that these are interesting, amazing, fun products but what they do is give you an edge. If this were sports, they would give you a half-step on your opponent or a few extra yards. An edge. But as we all know, those with an edge tend to be successful.

While there are almost certainly dynamics in your relationship that we aren’t privy to, making some improvements to yourself (for yourself) in a variety of ways will benefit you no matter what happens. Then where mones will help will be the edge. Maybe calming her down, or getting her to open up and talk or show her attraction to you. These effects and similar ones that mones produce can be helpful to you to. I don’t believe in a no-win situation in this case, it’s just a matter of what are you willing to do and how far will you go. But that’s just me.

Again, good luck.

22

Heh, if I’d gotten it at all from my ex, things might have had other results. (Although in retrospect, I am glad it didn’t, but my case was quite different.)

I know this is meant as a joke, I just don’t know about WHAT. :slight_smile:

23

The main thing I notice, Austinn, is how upset you are over this twenty year old kid. From what you’ve said, it appears to be nothing more than a few flirtatious text messages. Getting all jealous and judgmental over this makes you look weak and petty. How ever you really feel about this, I would never let her know that it bothers you. He’s only a kid. You’re way too substantial of a man to be jealous of a young boy! She’s lost respect for you because of financial matters? How financially secure is she gonna be with this kid.

More importantly, if she has any sexual desires or fantasies she’d like to experiment with, she’ll never feel safe bring them up to you after you’ve been so judgmental.

About age forty for a woman does frequently bring disruptive hormonal storms. Androstadienone is one pheromone that can help weather these storms. TAK is another. P87 at 7.5mcg to 30.0mcg is another worth trying.

A314 in high doses is probably the most powerful tool you have going for you. Try the custom fragrance option, if you want, or just let her bitch about the smell. What have you got to lose, anyway! It is probably the genuine manliness that you’re belatedly beginning to show that really pisses her off. Let her adjust to it.

Taking a break from her for the summer will allow you to experiment with pheromones, clothes, attitude, etc to learn what is attractive to other women. Your best assets now are different than what they were years ago when you were last single. Wear A314 everyday until its new attitude permeates your soul.

EDIT: That should be P78 (not P87)!! I’m so sorry! It’s taken me a month to re-read and catch the mistake. There’s a big difference between the two. For this purpose use P78 at 7.5mcg to 30.0mcg.

24

Not going to read through everybody’s reply, but mine is IH 2X and lots of it and Ishine. Skip the sexual stuff and the alpha stuff and stick to getting her to feel that deep connections and happy when your around. You cannot forgo communication and think you can sex your marriage into safety.

I wish you the best of luck mone wise, but they are simply a tool. Glad you are not giving up though. I also would suggest that if you want love, then look up the definition and love her. The best thing someone can do is praise her back into your life. That’s right, walk around in a state of gratitude that this tough time you are going through has given you a contrast to how wonderful your life really is with her in it. Be grateful you have this incredible opportunity to rekindle the love and build on the foundation you have already. Praise her for everything she is, the good, the bad, all of it.

You have a special opportunity right now and while I hardly believe an outside source is going to change anything, I applaud your efforts. Really what you need to do is if you see something you don’t like, change yourself and you change your world. Love is an internal emotion and mones will not influence it. Only you can influence it so get in their and influence it.

25

This was was what A1 helped me do. She learned to be calm and happy around me from the A1, I believe. It helped us communicate but there were other issues I wasn’t willing to bear in the end. Still, it’s a good place to start.

26

I don’t know about reinventing himself to please her. I do know, from what I hear from others/clients/family that things go stale because things that happen in live prevent them from doing what they normally did. With kids, careers, and other factors involved, many couples lose touch of what attracted them to each other to begin with. The core personality of people in my opinion stays the same during their lifetime, as lessons are learned, they adjust to it as the situations present themselves. Reinventing yourself, if I took that correctly, would be changing who you would be at the core. Finding out how and why they got to where they were to begin with should help determining if that relationship can be saved. Sometimes the schism is so deep that nothing people can do can save that, no matter how hard they try.

Just my two cents.

27

For the OP

I wanted to make two seperate posts because didn’t wanna mix things up.

Steve made a good pheromone recommendation with IH and IS.

You already are a part of her life and you to her. You have your kids, you try and understand what went on and for some reason that did push her away. You’re trying to get it back but you’re getting the resistance because for some reason it’s not jiving with her. I don’t know what it could be that’s making her do that but do not automatically think that her reactions are anything but normal because of an affair. I don’t believe that there is a textbook response to what happened between you two.

Remember that YOU two raised two beautiful children, that you two did this together, and all you’ve accomplished over the years have been with each other. Enjoy the family now and like I said before in the post before this, if the distance between you two is too great, sometimes you can’t bring that back.

Go back to the core that makes you happy, nowadays I think that there are always these “steps” that we have to take in order to get a desired goal. If you live life now and enjoy every minute that you get to spend with what you two built together, then I believe that it can work for you later on. The more relaxed and independent you are, the better it will be because things are being done out of that love that you two share, and not because of the perceived neccesity because of marriage.

I’m not married so I can’t say how hard it is to be in that type of a relationship, but that’s just my perspective from an outsider looking in.

28

Not reinventing himself to please her, just “refreshing” himself, seeming to once again grasp the zest for life. (He will be happier and thus more attractive to all, without seeming to be chasing after something else.) Just “overdoing” it would look like HE is having a mid-life crisis and no longer interested in her, “justifying” her fears and driving her away. Inviting her to join him on “appropriate” occasions, i.e., neighborhood BBQ but not boy’s night, or limited-seats at the game, kinds of things, and not “staying out late” just for the sake of staying out, especially at bars and clubs. And NEVER come home drunk or getting so drunk he has to stay over at a friends. The point being, he needs to seem more exciting/intriguing/alluring without seeming to be avoiding her, leaving her behind, or looking for “something better.” Which is why I suggested small changes that can include her, but don’t have to.

29

Well I’m not suggesting reinventing himself to please her, in fact I’m sure that a man could find any number of ways to reinvent himself or refresh his life in ways that infuriate the women they share them with.
I’m talking about reinvention, to recapture his own energy, vigor and zest for life. Often times when a person becomes attracted to somebody substantially younger than themselves, it’s not only the physical signs of youth and lack of wrinkles that they find attractive but the youthful exuberance and vitality they seem to have.
I believe in men, this often translates to young men being hungry and ambitious to get ahead and make their mark. They have ambitions, goals and motivation to go after those goals. Many men once they reach a certain age (and a certain stage of their relationships) get a sense of "well, I have arrived, all my goals have been reached so now I can finally relax and just enjoy the fruits of my labors. Some might interpret this comfort as complacency.

I honestly think that in many ways a lot of aspects of what some people negatively refer to as a “mid life crisis” are in fact quite good.
Granted it’s usually women I hear complaining about their husbands going through it. But suddenly taking care of your body, redefining your sense of style, learning some new skills, exposing yourself to new music. So long as it doesn’t conflict with your responsibilities I don’t see anything negative about it. I think (and again this is usually the case in a MANS crisis and the wife is unhappy about it) is when one partner decides to go in a direction of experiencing new things and the other partner wants to maintain the status quo.

Her current feelings imo are not because of anything he did, but because of what SHE did and he hasn’t done. She’s changed. Her health, her appearance and as a direct result of both, her self image. The bottom line is she’s growing in a certain direction. She has different feelings about things than she did however many years ago and for all sakes and purposes she’s not the same person she was back in the day. Essentially your choices are these…
Hold on to the memory of the person she was and try to pull her back from her journey and watch her push herself away even harder.
Or accept that she’s changed, decide for yourself if you still want the person she is TODAY, and do what you need to do to become the kind of man that can attract THIS woman, as opposed to the woman she USED to be.

Personally, while I tend to have a hard time forgiving indiscretions like the one you described. You have a lot invested in terms of time, money and children raised. Besides which, from a very male point of view and with no offense intended…it sounds like your wife has become quite the tall glass of milfy goodness. Physical looks aside, she sounds like she’s becoming a more vital and energetic woman. I think a little personal growth (that quite honestly we should never stop pursuing in the first place) to entice a woman like that might be worth it.

30

“Women go into a relationship expecting everything to change. Men go into relationships expecting everything to stay the same.” John Gray

First of all, I’m not going to tell you to give up. I’m going to try to shed some light on her behaviour.

All of my comments are to be taken as hypothetical and based on personal experiences, common behaviours and processing.

She is deep in the middle of the mid-life crisis that seems to be affecting every woman about this age. Three years ago we got her breast implants. It was my hope at the time that this would to boost her self image and (hopefully) her sex drive, which has been virtually zero for the duration of our marriage**. After the implants, she started getting interested in working out at the gym and running (I’m sure some of you guys are already nodding your heads and laughing at this point).** Gradually over a period of three years she has also become more comfortable with her body, dressing sexier (often inappropriately). Our sex life was in fact a little better, but we are talking sex maybe every three weeks to a month on average. I should also say that my wife has always been 100% trust-able and that is something that I’ve always loved about her.

This assumption - and it is an assumption; of her mid-life crisis. I hope you’ve never said those words to her. She may view this as her ‘finally coming into her own and having her Renaissance’. She wanted nice perky, firm boobs and got them. Then, she went to work on the rest of her. Now she realises she’s hot. This is a devastating realisation - especially if you’ve not felt like that before or if life has sucked the ‘hotness’ out of you. She’s feeling ‘new’ and I most certainly DON’T mean ‘renewed’. She’s feeling NEW. New bod, new clothes, new . . . life . . . ?

Three weeks later I discovered she was having a text message affair with the 20 year old neighbor of our friends. The day I confronted her about it my marriage completely blew up. The affair ended at this point, but years of pent up rage, resentment and anger came pouring out. She claimed she hasn’t felt love for me for a very long time (which I honestly don’t believe because she is a terrible actress and there is no way she could have pretended that well for that long). I now know this is very typical behavior for someone who has been caught in an affair. We’ve been to marriage counseling and other specialized programs. For her the counseling has not been helpful because she has not been willing to “work” on our relationship yet. (also typical post-affair). After three months of major volatility, we are currently in a period of calm but with zero effort being exerted on her part.

A text affair. This is one of those dangerous things; because in her head, it can be all her romantic fantasies rolled into 1 hot little gift wrapped present. He saw her as hot. Not as his wife that’s been in this bed, had my kids, have a past with - you get the picture? These emotional infidelities are worse than her having an ONS. Sex as you guys know, can be just a physical release and nothing at all to do with the person on top of you. An emotional infidelity is already eating at everything that you want to do to ‘rekindle’.

"Years of pent up rage (incredibly strong word!), resentment (the great underminer) and anger (over?) PENT UP?! Oh, my god. This is the worst combination. Pent up for years? It’s a wonder she’s still standing. These are the issues to deal with, primarily, for HER; this is what needs to be reopened, cleaned and treated. There is no progress to be made while these are underlying every communication the 2 of you have. I don’t see mones helping here - she is probably AFRAID of what she’ll say. Horrible, hurtful things that will be worse if they’re based in any kind of tiny truth.

And acting? NEVER, NEVER, NEVER underestimate what a woman can pretend - if she feels the status quo (safe) or her life (safety), or a getaway ‘depend’ on it. I have seen many, many women play happy / content housewife/career mom for YEARS and all of a ‘sudden’ the kids turn 18, 16 or whatever and they pack up and leave. Then you find out she’s had a plan - FOR YEARS.

I’ve even been involved in the first conversations of "I’ve made my mind up. I’m gonna leave when . . . " Seen the plans in action. From my parents, to the parents of friends and since, my peers. I have also seen a bunch of times; the ‘break’ being used as a means of acclimatising all parties to the plan that follows.

We continue to sleep in the same bed every night, but there is zero physical contact going on. No hugging, kissing and certainly no sex. About the only quality time we spend together on a regular basis actually has the potential to lend itself to pheromone-related experimentation. We frequently spend time watching movies & shows together in bed after the kids are asleep.

This can quite simply be a concession to the status quo. An avoidance of having those conversations with you or the kids. Or of the questions being asked or her ‘hand’ being tipped.

Women are all about “feelings” and my wife clearly falls into that category. So I have realized, this is a battle to change her feelings. I can’t’ win this with rational arguments about how the kids would be devastated, how great things have been in the past etc… She has recently said things like “my heart is dark for you,” and “whenever I think about trying to repair the romance between us it gives me major anxiety.” Bottom line is, I have to change the way she feels.

You can’t change her feelings. They took a bunch of time getting there, with all the rage (really, that word is just blowing my mind) and resentment - you run the risk of deepening her resentment. Concern for HER could entail the suggestion of HER working out the basis for all this extremely self consuming negativity.

As someone who got dragged into every screaming match in the parental domicile - DO NOT BRING UP THE KIDS, THEIR POSSIBLE REACTIONS OR THE PAST. You will be accused of ‘using our kids to keep me where you want me’. She’s telling you - as clearly as she can right now - the past is a subject of anger, resentment and rage. Bringing the kids bundle is only going to sound like and be perceived as emotional blackmail on your part.

Again - YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE WAY SHE FEELS; NO MORE THAN ANYONE CAN MAKE SOMEONE ELSE HAPPY. She needs to be free of all that negativity BEFORE anything else is going to be productive.

Rekindle her feelings of love for me. Yes I do believe she still has love for me but she is very angry and resentful and doesn’t know what she wants. Therapists have told me they really don’t think she is done with the marriage though she is attracted to the (false) idea that leaving would make her happy again.

This is a loaded gun, right here. The therapists are not mind readers; and to challenge her on this (you or therapists) could very well precipitate a further withdrawal on her part with more negativity aimed at the ability of the therapist. Don’t push on this, if she’s cornered emotionally, she could kick her way out of the back of the corner - leaving you looking at her retreating figure and more distance between you. The idea may be false, but according to whom? She could be thinking along the lines of “I gave the best 17 years to this and them, time for ME now”.

Regain her respect and trust. This is big because we’ve had some financial problems in the past and she (of course) blames these all on me.

This could be a mechanism to maintain her distance from you. Or could quite honestly be something she truly believes - another resentment and anger anchor that needs to be severed - by dealing with the anger etc. If she can get those managed, she’ll get closer to her part in all of this. But she has to be willing and I don’t know her temperament - Is she the type who admits they’re wrong, over reacting, have a part in every situation in your lives?

Rekindle her sexual desire for me. LEAVE THIS ALONE RIGHT NOW! If she’s so seriously angry and resentful with / at you; any sexual feeling for you is going to further incense her. Plus, this would definitely be out of the ordinary for your relationship - no? How would that help? You also don’t need to feel like you’re being used as a ‘physical relief’ by someone you care about. I have seen a ‘boys don’t cry’ alpha male reduced to sobbing over just this situation. Broke my heart - he was one of my best friends.

For anyone tempted to post “give it up, your marriage is over,” please save it. I’m not interested in your negative outlook. I’m looking for tips and advice on how to best apply pheromones (and any other out-of-box techniques) to save my marriage. And for those who are willing to lend your advice, I thank you in advance…

I’m not telling you to give up. There are exceptions to every situation and I don’t see why you can’t be that exception. I’m just trying to help with what I’ve seen and know personally.

While I lived in the mothers domicile, I watched her marry and divorce 3 times; 8 serious boyfriends and at least 4 major makeovers that I can remember. I only saw her twice after leaving and so don’t know what other males she broke. And she did break them. Deliberately, pre-meditated minutely planned and strategised and executed.

I also watched this type of thing happen to other couples over and over. Women will stew, after too much of this, they plan. I, personally don’t know of anyone with a solid, happy FIRST marriage.

Please believe, I’m not trying to depress you. I’m NOT telling you to give up. If you’re using mones, I suggest things that will promote a calm atmosphere. And I mean atmosphere. But don’t leave her thinking “WTF is he up to NOW?!” try to be subtle. If it looks like she’s not paying attention to what’s going on - DON’T GET SUCKED IN! She may play oblivious - but she is watching and scoring. Yes, scoring. Believe me.

I honestly hope some light has been shed from a different angle, and I truly hope things work out the way you want them to and ABSOLUTELY NO OFFENSE IS INTENDED AND I APOLOGISE NOW IF ANYTHING IS INTERPRETED AS SUCH.

Please keep us posted as to your progress.

31

Never married, but I’ve gotta agree with the gentleman’s recommendation 100%

My relationships bear an eerie similarity and I know how these things ultimately go down…

32

ASTREA! Freaking Brilliant. My vote for TOTW and the whole damn year so far.

33

I’d like to SECOND that; and why isn’t the AWARD already at the bottom of her page, Sir? :roll_eyes:

Nothing TEXT BOOK about her post. Before long, there will be books out about how to look at the opposite sex … and they will sell, too. People need to start following their hearts and learning from others, not from what’s on page 45.

34

Heh. Even a text book could help, starting in grade school! Interpersonal / Psych of Human Relations. It doesn’t even have to be about SexEd, just how to be a decent ethical person, how to find other ethical people to be your friends, and therefore be ready to be a good “friend” when the right one comes along. (Just think, fewer barfights, less domestic violence, and less call for CPS, not to mention less taxes.) :stuck_out_tongue: I mean, why the HELL do I know how to spin wool, instead of being taught THAT in 8th grade? /end personal frustration with the illogic of the world. :stuck_out_tongue:

35

YOU know how to spin wool!?!?!?!? :open_mouth: Well, I guess I’m gonna have to take back half the things I THOUGHT about’cha, SS! :wink: You keep shocking me like that, and Imma have to hug’ya! :roll_eyes:

"Dear Diary,

I was WRONG, again!" :smiley:

36

Just what have you been thinking about me? :open_mouth:

"Dear Diary,

Get used to it!" :stuck_out_tongue:

37

It’s not perfect, as you guys on here know already, but my marriage is my first and only marriage, and it’s been solid for durn near 30 years. And we’re pretty happy together. I don’t see goin’ anywhere else anyways. I’m just fighting to get something back that health conditions took away, is all.

I have to agree with the advice Astrea gave, though.

Usually when something like this happens it’s because not enough attention was paid to mutual communication. Look back over those 17 years. Did communication start to wane in recent years? When did it? WHY did it? And what is it that you said you weren’t willing to face just yet?

Sidebar to ScienceStudent: by hand, or on a wheel? I do it by hand…

38

I don’t do either; I just know both. :open_mouth:

39

Oh, serious congratulations! I remember that now. But I don’t know you - personally; nor have I written your hubby dude. But that is another one of your amazing accomplishments.

Done both, puts me to sleep. No wonder there’s so many stories of ‘princesses spinning and becoming entranced’.

40

Great colorful post earlier :slight_smile:

Well now you “know of” two people who have long happy first marriages. I have been married over 20 years and its solid as a rock. In fact I know lots of people in happy long term first marriages. Dont judge how you see relationships by what you experienced with your parents it can give you a false impression of how women think and how they interact in relationships.

That can go either way to. One of my friends parents have a fabulous marriage. Never ever fight and are constantly attentive to one another. My friend cant seem to stay in a relationship because she expects all of hers to be like that. As soon as any minor conflict occurs of he doesn’t pay enough attention she high tails it out of the there.

I dont want to see you going into a LT relationship or a marriage assuming it wont last because then its doomed to fail from the beginning. You end up spending to much time looking for that failure and we all know the law of attraction. What you think and believe becomes your reality. :wink:

Tisha