Thanks Fred! You have been with me from the start, and your support and guidance has been amazing.

I am just completing number 16, no leakage yet. Kids will be home very soon.

When this is all over, mfoss, I'm going to buy you a drink.

And I don't even drink!

Fred, I look forward to going for pho with you one day.

As an update, things have been fairly crazy here tonight, yet controlled. She has gone to stay with family, an outlet I set up in advance. I realize that many would encourage me to insist on her staying here, and I also setup that option as best I could, but I am ok with her being with family I have properly exposed and made my position clear to. Not ideal, but acceptable.

I have responded to her alien behaviour with as much Plan A as I could, without apologizing for exposure. It has been much easier for me to do the right things this time, which I realize is sad.

As a note, I called OM to clarify a factual point, and he was extremely apologetic, and expressed a strong desire to never see her again and have this whole thing "go away". He even offered me incentives to not expose him further in his world.

Getting ready for tomorrow. I am going to hit Plan A hard, but I feel I need to setup Plan B more properly. I am not sure I can do this again, in fact, I am pretty sure I can not. I want to be ready.

My big question is, legally she is entitled access to the matrimonial home, I can not deny her that (legally). She has no income currently, so getting another place is going to be hard. How should I approach this issue in my Plan B terms?

mfoss, my wife was in the same financial condition as yours when she informed me she was leaving. I let her stay in the home and, by legal agreement, she had to vacate at a certain date.

She spent five weeks and never once did any active searching (that I can tell) for a place to stay. The day she moved out she told me that her prior arrangements had fallen through.

Not my problem.

She could have chosen to end the affair, go No Contact and work on the marriage. And stay home. She chose not to.

Not my problem.

I think you know what I'm saying...

In absence of a legal agreement with respect to residency, what should I put in my Plan B conditions? Should I just say that I do not expect her to be there at all, and let her practically challenge that? What do I do if she does? I have no legal ground to stand on, right? Will the practical ground be enough?

I believe I've heard more experienced voices here recommend doing it anyway. Let her go to the courts and have them issue an order requiring you to grant her access.

Waywards are foggy. Tell her you can no longer tolerate her conducting an affair under your roof and that she has to go. She'll be so confounded that she'll go. Probably to him.

And then the next day you have the locks re-keyed.

By the time she comes to her wits and figures out she has rights, she'll be forced to figure out what to do next. "Hmmm, shall I go to the cops and tell them that I got kicked out because I was having an affair...?"

The more I think about it, the more I feel I should Plan B soon. Or at least be very prepared to hit it. Currently, I feel her going to OM is not possible, but there is a very real possibility there are more OM, or there soon will be.

I am going to read as much as I can, but any advice on what else I need to consider would be appreciated.

Just a couple of words of advice, mfoss:

The Plan B letter is a *love letter*. It is not meant to be cruel or vindictive. It states that the love you have for WW and your marriage is in danger of fading. You want to preserve that love, hence you are implementing Plan B.

You should have your IM already set up, and include information on how to contact the IM in your letter.

A path back should be clearly stated. Of course, it starts with the end of the A, with an agreement to write a joint letter of permanent NC to the OM. Whatever other conditions you want/need should be listed, or at the very least, the conditions to begin *consideration* of recovering the marriage should be included. STD testing, polygraphs, counseling, etc. Whatever YOUR requirements are.

It should go without saying that Plan B also means TOTAL DARKNESS. As I say, that means both initiating AND receiving! Even snooping and asking others about her can send you back to the beginning of Plan B. So unless absolutely unavoidable, DARK MEANS DARK.

On that last part, I can tell you that DARK is a good thing. It's only been two and a half weeks since I last saw The Leopard (the day she moved out) and already I'm feeling better (more comfortable with myself).

You go, guy!

What are best practices for choosing an IM?

I have exposed to the kids, and feel I did a better job this time.

My question is (and I asked this last time as well and got mixed answers) should I let WW know that I have told them. I think I should, but I realize this is a big LB. I did not tell her last time, and I do not think she knows. The kids may not have told her either. So, I feel that I did not get the full benefit of exposing to them.

Thoughts?

My opinion (not based on reading Dr. Harley - who I think addresses this here in one of the newsletters) is that you should NOT tell her directly, and let her find out for herself.

It's going to be a LB any way you look at it, but if it comes tangentially it will be more confusing to the WS than if you came right out and told her.

As they say, your marriage can survive anger. It cannot survive an affair.

Well, this affair is stone cold dead right now. Clearly WW is capable of anything, but I feel comfortable this OM is not a willing participant.

I feel I did not get the exposure benefit last time I told the kids. I got benefit in being honest with them, and showing them a good example, but not the impact of her knowing they are aware of more than she would like.

I feel if I do not tell her, she may not find out, and I would not realize the full benefit of doing this.

If I do tell her, she gets angry, but the consequences are out there. And we can survive angry.

I feel this needs to happen sooner than later, as it negatively impacts my plan A (as a major lovebuster) to do it to have it come out later. It may naturally come out real soon anyways.

When I originally asked the question, melodylane advocated for bringing it up, which I take seriously. Would love to know what her (or others) opinion is given the current circumstances.

WW is clearly struggling with the aftershock of my nuclear exposure.

I am hitting Plan A as best I can, and "would you like a chip" towards alien behaviour. I have not been perfect, but I have been able to functionally respond to some very challenging situations.

I feel I have never been closer to the kids, and they are a big part of my motivation. I think WW will realize their understanding of the situation naturally soon enough.

My biggest challenge is to bring my best plan A game to the table.

My biggest unknown at this point is setting a plan B date, and understanding all the moving pieces related to that. How do I pick a good IM? What qualities am I looking for?

I picked my IMs (2 people) who know both WH and I and are willing to spend the time to relay information. They are more on my side than his but won't lecture to him and scare him off.

Mine are people who are around enough to reach when I need them and I am comfortable asking them to deal with child and financial issues.

I tend to use one a while, give them a break and then the other and so on. I don't want them to get burnt out.

The IMs that I picked were close friends of both my WH and myself. They are friends to our marriage and most importantly they love our children. My kids even call them grandma and grandpa even though they are not biologically related to us in any way.

The biggest part in picking your IMs is that YOU have to trust them. They have to keep things away from you that would hurt you. They should be as impartial as possible. They should not try to fix things between you, they should just be there to pass on pertinent info without any emotion. That should go both ways.

One thing I found was that my IMs don't have cell phones and their internet is not working now either so they are only reachable by phone. It isn't that big of a deal though because I had the visitation schedule written out in an addendum to the Plan B letter.

Make sure that you write your draft of the Plan B letter and put it up on here. The vets will guide you along with the successive drafts to make a great Plan B letter. I pretty much took the one out of SAA but changed a bit of it.

As far as what you should do about asking her to leave because she is legally allowed access to the marital home, does she know that she has that right? She may not know. Even if she does, let her make the choice. She chooses to recover the M or she goes. Don't make it a bad thing just simply state, "I can not allow myself to be harmed by adultery anymore. I have to spare myself any more pain." Something like that. I thought my WH would NOT go. It took 30 minutes of talking and me repeating over and over again that I couldn't do this anymore and I couldn't live like this before he put his things in the truck and left.

Get totally prepared first. Then remember the night before you do it, why you are doing it. You may get cold feet and you will get scared. I was a wreck but I knew it was the right thing to do and I pushed through it. Not that Plan B is easy(it is a different kind of hard) but in some ways it feels better. No more snooping(saves me hours a day), and a lot less drama.

Thanks for that, very helpful. I feel it is a big thing to ask of someone, and to be honest a lot of candidates who know us both are so stressed by the situation I am not sure anyone has the capacity to handle this. But, if I think about it some more, I hope I will come up with a good option.

I am still committed to Plan A in the short term, so I hope I have some time. However, I must get ready for Plan B for my sanity, and to give me strength to Plan A in the interim.

She knows she has a right to the marital home, and that it affects custody of the kids.

I think I can probably get her to leave, but I imagine she would come back pretty quickly on principle. Maybe I am wrong.

It seems impossible to Plan B if we are both in the same house, right?

I have the digital / Kindle version of SAA and can not find a Plan B letter. What page is it on?

Hi all - another quick question for your consideration. WW is inclined towards speaking with people I have not exposed to for obvious reasons. There are not that many, but there are a few.

My question is, should I make exposing to these people a priority, or should I make Plan A behaviour my priority? I think Plan A, but not totally sure. Thanks!

mfoss, what are the "obvious reasons" you have not exposed to these people? It sounds like they have the most influence, and thus should have been the first on your exposure list.

That said, since she's already talking with them and has likely "poisoned the well," I'd say you should do both the Carrot and the Stick of Plan A. Expose for sure, but you'll have to be less obvious about it, almost as if the topic came up by accident: "Oh, by the way, I don't know whether you know it or not, but WW is having an affair with OM, and I'd really like for it to stop so that we can work on putting our marriage back together..."

Pages 80 -81 in the hardcover version.