Did she flip? Did you tell her about the emails?


I know Steve will tell you this, but it is a major LB for her to think you are "educating" her about MB. Then it becomes "your" process. And she is already reluctant. So she should probably read the MB material, but not get "taught' by you. Confirm with Steve, but he was very adamant on this with me.

My W wasn't wild about it, but what did get her attention was that in the first sessions, the Harleys knew exactly what she was feeling from their long experience.

I told her about the emails, because she denied everything I was accusing her of until I began reciting her emails back to her from memory.

She was very confused and perplexed that I was still able to see her email. You should have seen the look on her face.

She didn't flip when I told her that I told OMW. She did mention at one point that she was worried about what would happen to OM and his family though.




Steve has mentioned that 'educating can be a LB. He has suggested that I present it in a way that makes her feel like I am looking for her buy-in to the plan, not forcing it on her. So far I have told her that i think the only way to recover is to make some kind of plan, that it won't just happen by herself. I told her that my idea for a plan is talking to Steve and using the MB material, but I would be open to any idea she has for a plan too. I told that I would just like her honest opinion on the MB material and Steve's approach

So which one of them is leaving their job? If neither of them are, you are just pissing in the wind. I thought you said your condition was her leaving her job. They will just take this even further underground if they still work together.

I agree. I was hoping OM'sW would take strong action. Maybe she is.

for now, I am following Steve's plan, no conditions, no demands. If I get nowhere over the next couple weeks using Steve's plan, then I'll give her my list of conditions for her to avoid a legal separation and divorce. Steve's plan is to get her to realize she needs to leave through education and counseling. I am extremely skeptical it work, but I am paying for his advice, and he does have years of experience dealing with this. Another reason I think Steve has told me to lay off issuing ultimatums, is that he wants to talk directly to WW so he can figure out truly where her head is before making a recommendation to take strong action.

Wasn't this your same plan before OM and your WW started having sex in an empty room at work? That is my one issue with Steve and Jennifer. They will counsel you on the best way to save your marriage at all costs. But what if you marriage shouldn't be saved at all costs? Steve's right, your WW won't leave you as long as you allow her to continue her A with OM, and OM doesn't leave his wife. This arrangement could last forever. Now if you had kids, and it was most important to you to keep the family together, this may be the action that I would take. However, after being married less than a year with no kids and already having the problems you have been having, it makes no sense to stick around until your WW decides for herself to stop screwing some other guy. I can tell you right now that their affair is 100% going to continue until one or both of them leaves that job. Can you handle that? If not, you need to start handing out some conditions or start some nuclear exposure.

[quote=jmwc95

Wasn't this your same plan before OM and your WW started having sex in an empty room at work? That is my one issue with Steve and Jennifer. They will counsel you on the best way to save your marriage at all costs. But what if you marriage shouldn't be saved at all costs? Steve's right, your WW won't leave you as long as you allow her to continue her A with OM, and OM doesn't leave his wife. This arrangement could last forever. Now if you had kids, and it was most important to you to keep the family together, this may be the action that I would take. However, after being married less than a year with no kids and already having the problems you have been having, it makes no sense to stick around until your WW decides for herself to stop screwing some other guy. I can tell you right now that their affair is 100% going to continue until one or both of them leaves that job. Can you handle that? If not, you need to start handing out some conditions or start some nuclear exposure. [/quote]

Agree 100%, another case of Plan A=Plan doormat. Surprised with Steve here........

Good decision.

Every situation is different. Everyone has their breaking points. Some people will fight through affairs, other won't or can't. It's easy to stand under the ledge and yell jump. I would never have thought I'd put up with everything I have, but I am still hopeful that life will be better than ever when we work this through.

If your WW is getting on the phone with Steve, then you shouldn't be freelancing on strategy. He is the best chance to save your marriage. Give it a chance.

I totally agree!

Yes I agree that getting on the phone with Steve is good. But at what cost? His inaction over the last week has seen this A esculate into a PA. How is that good?

This thread is a classic example of a BS settling for too little. This poster actually thought he was in recovery from an EA when he started this thread. Now its a PA. The advice on these boards is completely contradictary to what the Harley's offer. Something not adding up here......

The advice runs from kiss to kill so I'm not sure that is an accurate assessment. Some of it must be good :-)

Thats true....but I was referring more to the exposure. The boards recommend exposure to everyone and the minute the poster calls the Harley's they say NOT to expose. Beats me?

Well....I think the point was to do it right, and by right I meant when it was likely to have a shot at turning his W back to the marriage rather than out of it. I think that was what Harley was hoping to lay the groundwork for. However, he can only advise, and when a client has had it and needs to expose, he did advise it.

Remember....he had already exposed to the OM's W......didn't stop the affair. I can see Steve wanting to talk with WW before taking any more action, and see where her head is at.

After all, it is *her* behavior that this process is trying to change, right?

The thing is, the Harley's teach you that a wayward will not change their behavior while they are still in contact with their AP. We know that Steve isn't going to make any headway with his WW. You can't reason with a WS. Sometimes I wonder if the phone counseling is more about $$ and less about helping the client.

I can promise that his WW is still going to continue her affair (unless OMW gets tough and makes OM leave his job), Steve's not going to get through to her, she won't talk to him again, and this will have wasted another 4 weeks and $195. It's all too predictable.

I think the Harley's should make the BS examine their relationship and first see under what conditions the BS should still try and save the M instead of blindly doing whatever it takes to continue the marriage. If I were Steve, I would advise him to do a short plan A (carrot and stick) to see if that will change her behavior, and if it doesn't move on to plan D considering the have no kids and have only been married a few months. This is only setting the BS up for years of being a doormat to his wife. She will learn that she can go outside the marriage again if she wants and her BS will just take it, especially if they have kids. She will be in complete control.

This has been the most frustrating part of this process. Discussing my predicament on this forum has really helped me feel like I am not alone in this, but when the advice offered here is contradictory to what Steve is telling me, it can get frustrating. Sometimes I worry that I haven't given all the details to Steve since we only have a limited time to talk, and that maybe if he saw everything I posted here he would have a different view of the situation. But I rack my brain to think of what else I could tell him and come up with nothing. I should probably start making a list of questions for my next discussion with him.

A lot of you have expressed confusion as to why Steve is taking a slower approach. Are they any questions you think I should ask him during our next session. Many times when I am updating him on the recent events, we get side-tracked and spend a good amount of time on one little detail, and sometimes I feel like I might be forgetting to tell him something important.

I asked Steve this question. I said, "What if staying with WW is not what will bring me the most happiness in this life?" He came back with, "Can you imagine anything better than falling back in love with your first wife, and living a happy life in a healthy marriage." OF course, my answer to that was no, nothing would make me happier. He said that since I still have some form of love left for WW and energy to work on the marriage, why not work toward that goal. Which makes a lot of sense to me.

The key phrase in that goal is "healthy marriage." If we end this affair, and work toward recovery, it still may not mean we get to a healthy marriage. At that point, time for plan D.

If through the recovery process, WW does not learn to respect me and our marriage, then we haven't built a healthy marriage. Ending the affair is just the very first step to fixing a much larger problem.





I agree. I don't think Steve is expecting to talk to WW and all of the sudden make her realize what she has done, and immediately quit her job. I think he just needs to talk to her directly so he can recommend the best course of action for me.

TC9,

I can imagine you finding a wonderful woman to marry who would never cheat on you and building a family with her.

TC --

I am a former wayward. My husband convinced me to talk to Steve.

I agreed, so that I could tell everyone that I had tried working on the marriage.

I am usually a non-emotional female -- pretty logical thinker.
I had to agree with nearly everything Steve had to say.
He was pretty empathic to my views. I didn't feel judged, he was very non-confrontational. He let me voice my complaints and justifications for the affair. He plants some seeds.

So from that perspective, it was good information for my husband to have -- it gave him a much clearer picture of what EN's he wasn't meeting and how to perfect his Plan A. And it de-escalated some of the tension between H and I.

But -- don't expect Steve to fix this. He can be logical and pragmatic. And its hard not to agree *logically* with everything he says. !HOWEVER! Affairs don't run on logic, they run on emotion!

She could agree with everything -- but still not be able to end the affair.

That is why you MUST make this affair uncomfortable for her to continue. With exposure, with consequences. You must NOT be a doormat -- there is nothing sexy or attractive about a doormat.

TC, I may be wrong in this, but it is my impression that in the thousalds of cases the Harleys have counseled on, their is only one significant variable -- the BS. Their amount of patience, love bank, willingness to bear the burden for a good long time, willingness to forgive and take some blame for where the marriage got.

I think most As the Harley's see are in the same rough parameters -- obsessed with OP, blind to the effect on their spouse and family, and unable to see any hope of replacing the cuddly heroin the A gives them with a return to the tired old marriage that wasn't meeting their needs.

EA? PA? Both? In terms of turning around the WW, that might not much matter. In terms of what the betrayed spouse can forgive, it might be determinative.

I termed the disparity of advice here "kiss or kill"....but that is everyone's own baggage, success or failure from their own narrow experience, or reading one sided stories here.

Everyone here would agree from real life friends that there are two sides to every marital story, but they seem to forget that on these boards, you know? The Harleys, I think, realize that and that is why they work so hard to get the WS on the phone, and get one on one time with them in each call.

In cases like me and TC, you are dealing with a subset of a subset of a subset of BS who want to keep trying. We are a minority. If it is going to fail it is going to fail, but I for one would rather be encouraged to be patient than taunted into precipitate action, particularly if we are getting direct Harley counsel on our tactics.

TC: definitely bring questions and take notes. It is not cheap time and you should get the most out of it. It will save you a lot of time and money to do the background reading rather than get educated an hour a week.