MR,

I went back and actually read through TMTS's threads. He found the info about OM's GF on 2/1. His wife was scheduled to move out on 2/2. He and the neighbor dropped the bomb beginning with exposing to OM's GF that night and by morning of the day she was to leave, it was a done deal...

Up to that point he had not been helping her move out, financing her move out or suggesting that she move out.

Once he had the info on OM's GF, he showed his wife that OM was just a player and the fantasy broke into pieces.

Mark

rprynne,

That's why what you call a cat isn't important. They don't come when you call them anyway...

When I go bass fishing I often look for just the right combination of color, size, shape and action that will cause Mr (or Ms) Bucketmouth to dart out from the safety of the hole under the log to grab my lure so that I can catch him or her.

Sometimes, the color is all that matters. Other times it is the shape or the action or the size. But most often it requires some combination of all of these in order to get what I want out of it. When I find that right combination, I have won the battle and the fish is mine.

Most fish don't bite lures because they are hungry. In fact the guys who win money at it can get bass to bite all day long and not just at feeding time. Once the right trigger (called a releaser) is found and presented properly, it is just a matter of time before the fish is caught.

That is what Plan A seeks to do, to find that releaser, that thing or combination of things that causes the WS to come out of hiding (State of Withdrawal) and take the bait and slide back into Conflict. (Yes, in this case CONFLICT is a GOOD thing.)

And just like I base my decisions of how to modify my presentation based on the reaction I get from the fish, I can use the reaction of the WS to tweak my presentation in Plan A to ensure the greatest likelihood of success. Much of what I do has no effect, but sometimes I get a little response that tells me I got part of it right. I can then use THAT to find the next piece of the puzzle. I get no reaction or very little to my first choice. As I get closer and closer I get the fish’s attention and eventually might get it interested enough in what I am doing to take a long look. The closer I get, the closer the fish is to being in my live well.

And when I get it, I win!

I can hang a worm under a bobber and throw it to some randomly chosen spot and catch fish some of the time, but I can catch more fish and bigger fish more consistently if I fine tune what I do and begin to use my skills to break the will, or more accurately over power the will of my quarry. If I do it just right, I can catch fish almost at will…

And then there are those days when I am ready to throw the tackle box in the water and tell them to just take what they want and send the rest back.

Mark

LOL. Quite right, quite right.


I agree.

Apologizing in advance for what's probably a stupid question... But can someone clarify the conflict that is good and that should be created to force the issue?

The theory is that there are three "states of marriage". The state of intimacy is where spouses are close and loving, and each meets the other's emotional needs.

The state of conflict is where the spouses are more distant from one another, and where they fight and argue all the time. Each spouse is seeking to have their emotional needs met by the other, and the arguing and conflict is the result of those unmet needs.

The state of withdrawal is where one (or both)of the spouses is essentially "checked out" of the marriage. There is no conflict, because the withdrawn spouse doesn't care enough to argue anymore. The withdrawn spouse isn't seeking to have their emotional needs met anymore - either they have given up on them, or they have found someone else to meet their emotional needs.

(I saw this in my own marriage - after years of conflict, we suddenly stopped arguing. I figured things were getting better between us... but my wife was in fact making plans to divorce me, and had given up hope that I'd ever "get it".)

Usually the path back from withdrawal to intimacy means going through conflict. Drawing a Wayward Wife back into conflict means she is starting to care about the marriage again, and she is starting to want her emotional needs met by her Betrayed Husband again.

This is a step in the right direction.

I believe Mark is referencing the "three states of a marriage" that Harley talks about on this website and in his books. The states are intimacy, conflict and withdrawal.

CC beat me to it.

read it here

The bottom of each page has a link to explain the next stage of marriage

Alex,

I refer to the State of Conflict per Dr Harley's 3 states of mind in marriage.

Intimacy = Happy, contented, negotiations being ruled by the Giver for the most part.

Conflict = Not happy, not very contented, the Taker running things and demanding more.

Withdrawal = No interst left for the marriage. Neither the Giver ror the Taker wants anything since apathy is what rules.

When a peron has checked out of the marriage, they are in a state of Withdrawal.
By luring him or her back into a state of conflict, it proves there is still something there and that they care.

And conflict, in the sense of fighting etc can also be a good thing in that it means the person feels that something is at stake. Resolution cannot happen without conflict. Conflict is not a bad thing, it is either not resolving it at all through avoiding it or by negotiating unfairly by demanding selfishly or venting anger that is a problem.

The antithesis of LOVE is not HATE but APATHY.

For more on the 3 states of mind in marriage see this link>>>Click Here

Mark

Thanks Pep. Hope you realize I only post here in a vain attempt to try and get on the notable posts thread. Once that happens, I'm gone.

Pep,

I need to start just linking to stuff and quit wasting so much time writing...

The fact that I am at work doesn't speed things up either.

Mark

In that case, NO notable post for YOU ... that way you'll stick around.

So, is theory that since you go from intimacy to conflict to withdrawl that the only way back to intimacy is to "back track" through conflict?

Again, as I'm new to this (and just ordered the book), this may be stupid follow-up question, but, by definition, conflict can't really happen during Plan A, can it? Or is that the carrot and stick of A that I've been reading about?

Thanks...

EXPOSING the affair creates conflict, would you agree?
Cutting off funds to pay for adultery creates conflict, yes?
Turning off the adultery cell phone creates conflict.
Behaving well and meeting ENs of the wayward while doing the above creates conflict.

Alex,

Don't confuse conflict with angry outbursts and disrespectful judgments. Conflict in the sense of being confrontational is how things get resolved.

Conflict, as in the 3 states of mind is not about arguing or being confrontational, but is more related to the way you relate to each other. A person in intimacy wants to make life good for the other spouse. Once in a state of conflict, the Taker begins to rule negotiations and the person wants to make him or herself happy even at the expense of the spouse. In withdrawal, you want and expect nothing form the spouse and so in that sense the STATE of Conflict is a step closer to Intimacy than withdrawal and therefore an improvement.

But back to the idea of conflict being the way things get resolved and whether or not it is to be avoided during Plan A...

Plan A actually should maximize that kind of conflict (keep in mind here that we are using the same word to mean two different things. One is Dr H's term for a state within marriage and the other is the normally accepted definition of the word) When a WS has already pretty much checked out and has given up on the marriage by justifying their affair based on some real or perceived defect in the marriage or in the BS, meeting EN and doing away with Love Busters will cause a serious conflict for the WS. This is because the reasons that he or she has given to him or herself for starting the affair have been removed. It now becomes more difficult even for the WS to try to justify the affair even in his or her own mind.

At the same time, refusing to subsidize the affair, cutting off free babysitting while the affair partners meet, exposing the dirty little secret to anyone who the WS might value as a friend or family member causes conflict by tainting the affair. The conflict might eventually reach the point where the WS can no longer handle being in such turmoil all the time and returning to the marriage becomes easier than continuing the affair. The excuses being given for the affair are shown to be bogus and the affair begins to crumble because the fantasy no longer works even for the WS.
The trouble most people get into with conflict is that they think it is something to be avoided. But conflict is the way we reach agreement when we are at such opposite ends of things as to what we want.

Financial guru Dave Ramsey tells a story that shows the value of conflict and seeking resolution rather than simply avoiding the conflict...

Two elderly sisters lived together. They were on a fixed income and had little if any surplus to spend on much of anything. They had one orange in the house and both sisters expressed a desire to have it. They each eyed up that orange and after a few failed attempts thought they had found a solution to their problem. They did what most people would do; they cut the orange in half.

As one sister began to eat her half of the orange, the other handed over her own half and left the room dejectedly. Resentment was built between them and while one got the orange, which she so desperately desired, she did it at the expense of the other and there was now a rift between the two who had been so close.

So why the problem? Isn't it a fair solution to cut the thing in half and each take half as much as getting all of it? Isn't it better to get half than to get nothing?

But you see, if they had talked further and sought an answer to the problem instead of seeking a way to stop having a problem, they would have discovered this...

One sister wanted the orange for exactly what she got. She wanted to peel it and eat the sweet fruit it contained.

But the other sister wanted something entirely different from the orange. She wanted to peel the orange and use the peel itself to make her famous orange flavored cake and frosting. She didn't need the fruit, only the peel.

If they had talked long enough and asked the right questions they could have both had 100% of the orange instead of only 50% and BOTH of them would have been happy and BOTH of them would have gotten what they desired.

Stopping a disagreement is not the same as resolving it. Facing, understanding and resolving conflict prevents resentment and removes the justification for an affair.

In marriage conflict will happen. What we do with those conflicts will determine what they will do to the relationship. Stuffing them down, shutting them up inside, avoiding dealing with them in the hope that they will go away on their own will never fix any problem.

So is that more than you wanted to know?
:MrEEk:
Mark

Mark (and others),

I have been reading your posts elsewhere on the boards with great interest and will, as soon as I have a chance, try to succinctly detail my sitch and post more pointed specific questions about how to implement (if it's not too late) Plan A and/or Plan B.

That being said, I don't want to hijack this board, so I will move my question to a board I started a week or so ago, when I thought that my "game plan" revolved around the issue of "Whether, What & When to Tell the Kids". I now realize that I need a more thought out, tactical approach and in the next day or two I'd like to put some "meat on the bones" and seek the collective guidance from posters on this board.

In the meanwhile, my original post, which contains a very lengthy description of my sitch is at:

AlexEN Thread - Whether, what and when to tell the kids

Thanks in advance,

AlexEN

Alex,

I haven't got time to read through your thread right now, but I will when I get the time. I work in retail so things are a little nuts right now...

If somebody else can help you out, there are a lot of experienced people with great insight on these forums and many of them can help you and devote more time to thinking about your sitch than I can at the moment.

Mark

The title got me reading, but the curling reference did the trick.

As far as actions vs. Plan A go, my case came down to getting lucky on the timing between the two.

Had I kicked her out I believe she would have come back, but don't know if I would have been willing to take her back. At that time I do think she would have still opted to leave. The fanatsy had too strong of a hold.

To answer the question of the subject, kick'em to the curb probably would have worked and going plan B or Plan FU may have made it easier on me at the time, but going the Plan A route has made recovery allot smoother because it gave me time to work on the things she was trying to get me to understand for years.

I must say that Rev did get to me the weekend before with a string of posts that made me think and led to the talk where I laid it out very clearerly that there was no guarantee that she would be welcome back if she walked out the door. This really got to her, and she admited herelf that had I told her this a couple of months earlier it would have just gone out the other ear.

So yes it came down to a decent plan A and well timed actions, and both Mark's and Rev's point of view made a difference.

As for the yougest Harley, she got me to finally get it and focused on a plan, but I do think that her real strength was working with us as a couple, and I wouldn't hesitate to call her again if the need arrised.


BTW - Hero? I'm truly flatered, but W2S hit it on the nail...I see it the other way around.

TMTS,
I knew making fun of curling would finally drag your silly canuck butt out of your igloo.

Glad to hear from you! Your perspective on how things played out in your situation will go a long way towards helping others. Under certain circumstances, Plan A can work if your ultimate goal is recovery.

Want2Stay

EGG ZAK LEE what makes the flow of opinions on this forum so helpful. None of us is right all the time. The conflict of opinions is VALUABLE on this forum.