Plan A or kick 'em to the curb?

There seems to be two schools of thought floating around right now on these forums in regard to how a betrayed husband should handle an affair by his wife as opposed to what a woman should do in response to an affair by her husband,

One line of reasoning seems to be saying that a man must confront his wife directly and demand that she end the affair and throw her out if she does not comply or he will look like a wimp.

The other says that a man should follow the Marriage Builders practice of attempting Plan A, follow it up with Plan B and only after some time has passed jumping to Plan D.

The first always works if you are willing to immediately kick your wayward wife to the curb, file for divorce and leave her in the dust if she doesn't stop the affair. It keeps the husband from having to deal with an actively wayward wife, quickly pushes the marriage into recovery or divorce and the state of limbo so many go through comes to a merciful and well defined end.

This often leads to a quick move into recovery for those whose marriage was actually pretty good before the affair and the wayward wife really wasn't looking to end the marriage and run off with the other man but merely having a little fun on the side as so many men have been prone to do for so many generations in some cultures. In these cases simply confronting the wayward wife and telling her that she has to decide often makes her decide at once to end the affair and try to fix the marriage.

Those who have recovered their marriage using this technique rightly believe that it can lead to recovery pretty quickly and so in their experience, demanding all that is needed from the wayward wife in order to recover the marriage seems like a proven method that leads to recovery. And it does, in a pretty good sized number of cases. But many men who used this method and had it turn out successful never appear at Marriage Builders because the affair ended, the wife made concessions and their lives have moved along with little fanfare.

One problem with those who don't come here and believe that recovery is an instant solution often never get to the real problems that led to the affair in the first place and a repeat is more likely. This is not the domain of betrayed husbands alone and many women find themselves on a second roller coaster years down the road.

The only problem with this method of demanding an end to the affair and laying out certain recovery steps in order to remain out of divorce court is that it usually does not lead to recovery of the marriage. The wayward wife who decides when confronted that she has made a horrible mistake and immediately sees the damage she has done and wishes to rectify it is in the minority rather than the majority.

Most often, a woman having an affair has already checked out of the marriage and has decided before she got very far down the road to adultery that she wants to get divorced from her husband, whether or not this new relationship with the affair partner works out. Now this is really just what we all call the fog of the affair talking in most cases, but the wayward wife believes it is true and has convinced herself that she would be seeking divorce even if the other man were not in the picture.

A man whose wife falls into this category and has maybe already moved out of the house, in some cases having already filed for divorce and yet he wishes to attempt to save his marriage is the one we most often see around here. Telling this type of wayward wife to either shape up or ship out usually ends in her living with the other man in a rented love shack while the husband tries to work visitation with his children into his busy schedule.

Plan A only brings the affair to an end and leads to recovery about 15% of the time. I know that doesn't sound like a very big number but considering that half of all marriages in this country end in divorce, it probably means that Plan A is saving some marriages just because it works some of the time.

But in the case where Plan A does not bring and end to the affair Plan B is what most around here would suggest as a next step. The purpose of Plan B is to basically stop the bleeding and wait until the affair burns out at which time it can be determined if there is enough left of the relationship to attempt recovery. Just so everyone understands, there usually is not enough left by then, but in the cases where there is, the two step Plan A followed by Plan B can lead to a recovered and rebuilt marriage.

Now some might not be able to stomach knowing that an affair is continuing and will be unwilling to attempt to win their wife back from another man. That is purely a matter of choice. But telling her to put up or shut up will only lead to a small number of recoveries and in most of those cases where it does not the men will not be here looking for help to save their marriages because they either bought the bovine excrement their wives fed them that the marriage was over and there was nothing they could do about it or they themselves could not handle having a wife that was sleeping with another man and decided to leave her behind and seek out a replacement (most often the case when he has not been exactly thrilled with the marriage for a while either.)

So Plan A is for those that want to save their marriage, or at least try to do so and when the affair has not come to an immediate end and remorse set in just by confronting a wayward wife. It does not save all marriages, is not for anyone who is a bit squeamish about swallowing their own pride and is not for everyone. But for a man, who wants to save his marriage, has not been able to break the affair by confronting his wife and can handle his tendency to be macho above all it can and does lead to success in about 15% of the cases it is applied to.

What is most often wrong with men who are in Plan A is that they are not really in Plan A at all. They are in Plan Beg, Plead, Kowtow, bend-over-and-take-it, lay down and let her walk all over you, Plan Doormat. They really have no PLAN and are just floundering around looking for the magic solution to their problem. There IS no magic!

These men most often believe the garbage they have been told by the wayward wife when she tells him she has been unhappy for years, that OM has nothing to do with her wanting to leave him, that there is nothing he can do to stop this from happening and all her friends and family seem to be on her side already. These guys come here and ask "what should I do"� and then do the exact opposite and come back wondering what the continuation of the affair means in the big scheme of things. "How do I make her stop this?" is the most common question, even when not asked directly. The answer is, you can not make her do anything. You have to make her WANT to stay married in order to have any hope for the marriage at all.

And for those that confrontation alone did not cause that to happen and yet still desire to save their marriage, Plan A is the next step. Not making her happy since that is not the purpose of Plan A, but giving her a reason to end the affair and try to recover the marriage. Properly done, Plan A does not make her happy, it makes her furious because it intrudes on the fantasy she is living in and brings the light of truth into the darkness of deception where the affair exists.

There is a huge difference between men and women when it comes to Plan A. But the difference is in how long they can actually do a decent job of it. A man who enters into Plan A knowing what it is and what it is not should be able to do it for about 6 weeks with little effort. Six months should be the maximum. Women can not do it for that long because most women are not as competitive to begin with. And that is what Plan A is, a competition to win your wife back from the fantasy she has run after. If you can not stomach that thought, then do not bother to try, because it will make you sick every day of your life from now till the day you die.

But if you understand and agree to do it as an effort to save your marriage, it bridges the gap between confrontation and Plan FU. It is a step in a process that might not lead to recovery at all for the marriage, but will always lead to making the man stronger rather than weaker if it done like it is supposed to be since Plan A is about fixing yourself in hopes of saving your marriage.

The list of all the things a betrayed husband needs from his wayward wife to stay married to her including honesty, passwords to email, all of those things only apply to making the marriage better and more affair proof, fixing it. Unless you save the marriage to begin with there will be nothing to fix. And when telling her to stop the affair does not work and you are not ready to throw in the towel, that is when Plan A and maybe Plan B can do what they are intended to do, save the marriage so that it can be fixed.

Not everyone needs to do Plan A.
Not everyone CAN do Plan A.
Not everyone SHOULD do Plan A.
Not Many WILL do Plan A.
Not every Plan A leads to recovery.
Not doing anything while the affair rages on is NOT Plan A.

Plan A is a plan of action, not inaction!

If you find your wife is having an affair, I suggest that you confront her at once and tell her in no uncertain terms that she must end the affair and commit to making the marriage better than it was before.

If that does not make the affair end and you still want to try to save the marriage, for whatever reason, that is when I recommend Plan A.

And if that does not work and you STILL want to try some more, then it will be Plan B.

If you do not care or you do not want to Plan A or B, then I will support you in Plan D.

Properly done, Plan A does not make her happy, it makes her furious because it intrudes on the fantasy she is living in and brings the light of truth into the darkness of deception where the affair exists.

Not everyone needs to do Plan A.
Not everyone CAN do Plan A.
Not everyone SHOULD do Plan A.
Not Many WILL do Plan A.
Not every Plan A leads to recovery.
Not doing anything while the affair rages on is NOT Plan A.

Plan A is a plan of action, not inaction!

There is a huge difference between men and women when it comes to Plan A. But the difference is in how long they can actually do a decent job of it. A man who enters into Plan A knowing what it is and what it is not should be able to do it for about 6 weeks with little effort. Six months should be the maximum. Women can not do it for that long because most women are not as competitive to begin with. And that is what Plan A is, a competition to win your wife back from the fantasy she has run after. If you can not stomach that thought, then do not bother to try, because it will make you sick every day of your life from now till the day you die.

But if you understand and agree to do it as an effort to save your marriage, it bridges the gap between confrontation and Plan FU. It is a step in a process that might not lead to recovery at all for the marriage, but will always lead to making the man stronger rather than weaker if it done like it is supposed to be since Plan A is about fixing yourself in hopes of saving your marriage.

thank you for this very timely post

If you have not met your wayward wifes emotional needs, she justifies having her affair. She uses that to convince herself that you don't care about her, that you don't love her.
In many cases, the WW tried to get your attention but gave up.

It makes her incredibly angry when you show the ability and willingness to meet those needs. She has already checked out.
She will think "oh NOW you'll do these things, after its too late, after I already found someone else".
And she will convince herself that you are only willing now -- because you fear divorce or financial loss. Not because you love her. She is already convinced that you do not care about her.

And she knows her behavior is trashy. So she is mad at YOU for making her resort to that.

And then there are WWs who are like me, EE...Plan A worked in our case...Today we are very happily married with an intact family -- So if we are going to use anecdotal situations as evidence, then each time you mention yours, please be sure to mention ours as well please. That's only fair, yes?

Mrs. W

If someone has so little respect for me that they'll have an affair and try to blame me for it, then plan FU is the most appropriate plan.

EE, I think you should know by now that her affair was not about you.

FTR, my H also had success w/ his Plan A. Moreover, it was a fear of any sort of Plan B by him that fueled our recovery.

What would be fair is for every one of your cases, remind folks that there are 6 cases where the WW got the divorce she wanted.

So I'll mention yours every 7th time, given that we are now told that only 15% of BH's who works the plans end up with a restored marriage.

The other 85% get the result I got.

I'm willing to mention your result, but keep in mind your results are not typical, and that's always been my point.

If you want to fight, then this is the best plan. But even the best plan has only a 15 percent success rate. Which means it's an 85 percent failure rate when you define success as a recovered marriage.

Now Dr H can redefine success as either a recovered marriage, or a BH being ready for it to end if you wish. But that's like defining a successful operation as only losing half your limbs and organs. You may be alive, but you lost half.

If a BH loses daily access to his children, there is now way you can call the outcome of the plan a success, period.

That's odd, it was me she divorced, not herself. It was me who is no longer the primary custodian of our child simply because she was a stay at home mom.

Telling me it wasn't about me really is little comfort since my XWW has the majority of time to shape and mold my child.

So why not tell me something really useful and comforting?

I believe you mean well. I hope you understand how hollow your words come across when I read them.