I'm sure this has been addressed before but I have been thinking about it alot lately. I hope this can help others. Please share your thoughts.


I have struggled with the idea of having no expectations and I have come to the conclusion that my expectations have come from hope�duh. After going through the ups and downs (mostly downs) of my Plan A, I am now in Plan B and I have had a chance to reflect with a little more clarity on my emotions during Plan A.

I can say now that the times when I was down in Plan A that it was because I would get angry or sad. I would get angry or sad because I had expectations of all the good things that I was doing during Plan A. I expected my WW to react to all the good things I was doing. She did not and so eventually all the disappointment would pile up and I would start resenting my WW and the affair to the point where I would want to give up and/or start Love Busting. This is the opposite of what we strive for in Plan A. I turned my hopes into expectations without realizing it and I set myself up for a letdown. Maybe this is what false hope is.

First what is hope?
Noun - the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. (I have hope for the best.)
Verb - to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence, to believe, desire, or trust. (I hope that my marriage will be saved.)

What is expectation (i.e. expect)?
Verb- to look forward to; regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurrence or the coming of.
�Synonyms
1. EXPECT, ANTICIPATE, HOPE, AWAIT, all imply looking to some future event. EXPECT implies confidently believing, usually for good reasons, that an event will occur: to expect a visit from a friend. ANTICIPATE is to look forward to an event and even to picture it: Do you anticipate trouble? HOPE implies a wish that an event may take place AND an expectation that it will: to hope for the best. AWAIT (WAIT FOR ) implies being alert and ready, whether for good or evil: to await news after a cyclone.

Ok, so that is what dictionary.com says. So how do you separate the two? I think the first step is understanding that your WS is in an affair and as long they are in contact with their AP they will be in a fog. As long as the WS is foggy they can�t be trusted. Understand that, accept it, your WS is no different than the rest.

So now you are out of YOUR own fog, the next step is executing Plan A with no expectations. You have hope already because you are here. So how do you keep your hopes from turning into expectations? I�ve been told that the real definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, getting the same result every time and expecting a different one. Example: Throwing a rock into a river and expecting it to not make a splash when it hits the water.

Analogy from Mark:
Consider that rock a $LB deposit, the river your spouse�s $LB, and the water in the river the affair. Your goal (Hope) is to throw enough rocks into the river to stop the water, to make a dam (end the affair). If you throw enough rocks into the river, eventually it will not make a splash, it will fall on another rock. That means your spouse�s $LB is getting into the positive. The more rocks in the river, the fuller the $LB. The factors in stopping the water (affair) are the size of the rocks you are throwing (meeting ENs), the depth of the river (how low is your spouse�s $LB), and the strength of the current (a one night stand or �soul mate� on the scale). Of course when you Love bust, you take a rock out of the river making the water flow more freely.

Back to Hope vs. Expectation in Plan A. You hope to recover your marriage. You cannot expect this in Plan A unless you truly know all the factors in your situation. You do not! You are not your spouse. You do not know exactly how they feel. You do not know how low their Love Bank is. You don�t know their true feelings for their Affair partner. You don�t know the true feelings their Affair Partner has for your WS. You probably do not know how long you will have to make Love Bank Deposits, the length of Plan A. If your WS has told you they are lying, see the First Step. You should EXPECT and Plan for the worst. The only thing you can do is meet their Emotional Needs and Avoid Love Busters and stick to Plan A.

So keep Meeting your Spouse�s ENs and have a solid Plan A in place with NO EXPECTATIONS of Recovery. You can expect your spouse not to appreciate or even notice the changes you are making or even to be angry.

Your HOPE is that you have the time, the strength, the patience, and the resolve; to do everything that you can do in Plan A to make your marriage a better option than divorce. Chances are that you will never know if your Plan A was good enough or if your M is worth recovery until Plan B so don't worry about that right now.

Hopes and Expectations are kind of the same thing, but in Plan A they are very different.
If you throw a rock in a river it will make a splash.
If you throw a rock on another rock, it will not make a splash; it will make a bigger pile of rocks.
In Plan A do not throw a rock into the river and expect it to land on another rock. I did and it and I regret that I did at the time.

They are synonims and they are both dangerous. They keep us stuck.
If the A is the water then it can't be stopped as water is the force that knows no rest. Bad analogy.
I know we are trying to make sense of this all and would love to read WS mind.
The only thing is certain is that WS prefers the company of the OP for now. It hurts but it is the fact.
What will happen tomorrow or in a year? Who knows
blessing

Plan A is just a way to let your WS know how things would be like if they break it off and stay but usually it doesn't work. Then you go into plan B to protect yourself from your WS and all the drama. It gives you time to gather yourself and to heal to the point that you can handle things. It also gives time for reality to set in for your WS.

My WH was gone for 5 months, during that time I did everything wrong at the beginning then I found MB after I had started a form of Plan B. My WH has been back for almost 6 months. It hasn't been easy since he has been back. But I will tell you this, he hated the fact that I had nothing to do with him while he was gone. He want the OW and wanted me to be his friend! Heck no!

The only thing that helped while my WH was gone was that I had God and HOPE! I held on to those 2 things. Never give up hope.

hope is one thing, expectations are another. HOLD ON to that hope. the reason you're cautioned to let go of all expectations is that CAUSE AND EFFECT go out the window while a WS is experiencing the self-imposed distortion of perception aptly referred to as The Fog.

the rocks-in-the-river analogy makes perfect sense in theory--only problem is, it's LOGICAL. WS's are utterly illogical, because they've spent a long time creating a new and twisted form of logic that requires them to EVERYTHING their spouse does in a negative light.

ok, example: the natural human response to kindness and consideration is one of happiness and gratitude. the WS's response may be in diametric opposition to the norm:

*hostility, indignation--"you cooked me DINNER? how dare you? just what in the hell do you mean by that?"

*it could be contempt and bitterness: "f*** your dinner, don't do me any favors!"

*it could be a hysterical crying jag brought on by shame and the juxtaposition w/ BS's kindness and their own selfishness.

*or it could even be a wan attempt at reacting properly--a weak smile, a stilted word of thanks, an awkward hug.

EXPECTATIONS are counterproductive at this point because they lead you to impose a rational order, a predictable system of cause and effect, onto a situation in which they don't exist.

HOPE, on the other hand, is essential. hope isn't based on logic, or even intuition. don't ever dismiss hope.

So you can hope for something you do not expect to happen?
How does that work?
Uhmmm
blessing

Atena, i don't follow--it's certainly food for thought, but are you suggesting that betrayed spouses should LET GO of hope? or that they should trust in their expectations?

the point that i was trying to make is that you can and should continue to hope, and take your WS's illogical thoughts, words, and deeds with a hearty grain of salt because you KNOW they're illogical. they can't be depended upon.

if you, as a BS, are solidly implementing your Plan A and you KNOW it, why allow yourself to be sidetracked by your WS's bizarre and inappropriate reactions? if you're doing the right thing, and your WS lacks the capacity to even RECOGNIZE rightness, let alone ACT on it, why skew your rational perception to fit their capricious and unpredictable behavior?

by strictly logical, expectation-based standards, i was utterly irredeemable as a wife. my H had hope.

blessings to you and your family as well.

Yeah, I dont know about that either, atena...I think that would be called a wish not hope....Like wishing for a million dollars, you wouldnt hope for it. Right?

I don't have the right answer, but my point is that going by the logic of the words you can't hope for something you do not expect to happen.
Sure, we all have hope that things will turn out for the best otherwise we would not be here.
blessing

The definition of expectation is hope.

Now_what, you did a good job with this post. Great idea.

Now the way that I look at the NO EXPECTATIONS IN PLAN A/B is this way.

When you do something in Plan A/B DON'T THINK ABOUT WHAT YOUR WS WILL/WILL NOT DO. Plan A IS about the BS. Silly sounding right? Actually, it's NOT. That's because it is YOUR time to SHINE. You get to show YOURSELF how you would be in a healthy happy marriage. Think of it as practice for either marital recovery OR a NEW relationship. How would your current/past relationship have been had you STARTED with ALL of this MB knowledge? WOW.

When I post to someone to have NO EXPECTATIONS, what I am saying is, "Don't think about the reaction or non-reaction of the WS AT ALL." They don't matter. The only way they matter is that you are going to show that you are WILLING to meet THEIR ENs. You can't say, "If I do X, then he/she will react with Y." They will most likely do Z. Then that gets you DISAPPOINTED and you LOSE a bit of HOPE.

So, in a nutshell, as others have posted, DON'T HAVE EXPECTATIONS. If you have expectations, you will become disappointed. Disappointment will lead to your lose of HOPE.

I agree.

brilliant! i'd like to think that's what i was trying to say.

three cheers for Scotland! =)

I will cheer for scotty

Oh Still. I think instead of calling you Stilly, I am gonna call you SILLY. You make me LAff.

BTW, Really NOT necessary. Just telling my take. Even I get it right every once in a while HEHEHEHEHE

You are absolutely correct Scotty. Makes sense now.

While I was in Plan A I really struggled with having expectations. I have an analytical mind and I just couldn't grasp the concept of having hope w/o the expectation. I mean, they pretty much mean the same thing. My head was spinning when I looked up the definitions. How is it possible? I had to make an analogy out it.
I'm also a very hands on person, meaning that I have to understand HOW something works before I get it. So I hope this thread can help dissect the whole thing a little better so that others may be able to understand what no expectations really means while in Plan A/B or whatever.

OK.

First order of business is to fix two parts of the rocks in a river analogy...

First, the analogy is Steve Harley's, not mine at its origin.

Second, The analogy is not to stop the flow of the river, and the water in the river is not symbolic of the affair. The object is to build a foundation that becomes visible above the surface that can be used to build a bridge to cross over to the other side.

The idea is to not rely on purely observed feedback when making those Love Bank deposits to sustain the efforts. We need to keep throwing those rocks (making deposits) in spite of lack of visible change and not in anticipation of it occurring.

If you do the things that meet the ENs of a person and you do it long enough and often enough, you will make progress in creating feelings in them that tend toward the positive. At the same time, you avoid taking anything out (avoid Love Busters) and KNOW that you are making headway despite the observed reactions of the WS.

That is the whole point of the analogy right there, to do what you KNOW is filling the Love Bank of the WS despite what the feedback from the WS is telling you. You don't do it and EXPECT ANY reaction but do it KNOWING that it is working logically.

My mantra of NO expectations has to do with the fact that if you expect (anticipate) a positive reaction from the WS as a way of analyzing your success or failure and whether or not you are making progress as some type of reward for doing the right hing, then you clearly don't really understand yet that it is the right thing to do and are only doing it for some sort of instant feedback that satisfies your need to be rewarded.

If you EXPECT a negative reaction after doing something that you know is good, then you will likely miss the subtle repositioning of the stance of the WS who will as soon as you do get through and make a deposit will almost immediately respond by ranting and wailing and complaining that you are a manipulator and a control freak and a person who has no self respect...

All of that stuff means that what you did ht the pile and made an impact. If it didn't make an impact then they wouldn't have even noticed the effort. So you can't EXPECT anything, good or bad. You can't rely on a good response to keep trying since doing the right thing is reason enough to to do what is right. And you can't EXPECT a negative reaction to everything you do because if you do then you will not be able to recognize the small changes that accompany the WS having to reposition their stand in order to continue to justify continuing the affair.

Hope is a belief that something, yet unseen and not yet realized is in fact true, not in spite of the evidence but because you know it to be true. What you place your hope in is only as good as the reality of that thing you hope for.

Expecting a specific reaction or response is what needs to be avoided in Plan A but if you lose all hope that anything will ever be better, then there is no longer a need for Plan A since if it cannot succeed it is a waste of time and causes needless suffering.

The water in the river simply demonstrates the observable change (or lack thereof) as the result of throwing that next rock. If you can only throw again based on seeing the result, then Plan A isn't gonna work for you because you won't be able to do it long enough to make a difference in the big scheme of things.

Mark

HERE HERE. NOW THAT DESERVES CHEERING.

Yes, Mark is ridiculously smart and does unbelievably awesome analogies.

Oh, yeah it was Steve Harley analogy...

The top of the river is the romantic love threshold Dr. Harley talks about.

If you have a reluctant spouse (wayward or not), your account in your spouse's love bank is below the threshold. The rocks are all below the surface of the river. You can raise that account and pile up rocks a long time before breaking through the threshold / breaking the surface of the water.

Traci makes some very wise statements here.

Plan A (the �carrot� part) is merely a strategy to plant a seed in your WS�s head that will hopefully germinate latter when the ground is �fertile�. The ground is unlikely to be fertile (and thus the seed will not germinate) until the affair is over, NC is underway, and the fWS has had some �come to Jesus� moments of self-reflection. The carrot just demonstrates a BS�s sincerity and willingness to build a NEW AND BETTER AND DFIFFERENT relationship with the WS. BOTH parties have to choose to change the relationship�s dynamics, communications, LBs, ENs, etc. & it is highly unlikely the WS will agree to participate in that together as long as he/she is still addicted to or unrepentant of the affair. Ultimately, real recovery comes down to MUTUAL FORGIVENESS and MUTUAL WILLINGNESS TO LEARN AND GROW TOGETHER IN A NEW DIRECTION.

Plan A alone (carrot + stick) only �works"-�i.e. breaks the affair with the WS re-committing to the marriage�s repair�about 15% of the time, by Dr. Harley�s own admission. Usually, Plan B and a great deal of time are needed to achieve a successful, healthy recovery-start, as Traci alluded to.

I think you need HOPE tempered with a lot of patience and realism. Many BSs, myself included at one point, expect Plan A to be some magic elixir and get frustrated when it seemingly has no effect on their WS. It�s effects are usually very subtle and long-delayed. Most cheating-spouses are not receptive to anything their betrayed-spouse says or does, no matter how genuine, while in the �honeymoon phase� of the affair. They don�t want to hear anything that interferes with their adultery-fantasy.

Mark & markos,

That was an excellent explanation of the analogy. Thank you :-)

Thank you Mark for posting, I knew that I missed the original intent behind the analogy. Thank you for the corrections.

Reading your Mantra has raised for questions for me. See below in red.




I really appreciate your insight, but I didn't grasp how one can hope w/o having an expected response from the WS either way.

When you have HOPE, what are you HOPING for?

I OFTEN said on my thread that I had HOPE and FAITH. I didn't feel like I could have one without the other. You see I have FAITH that GOD(or whatever higher power you want to call it) has a PLAN for ME and that he/she/they know what I need. That the path is laid out where it is supposed to be and I am on it. I have HOPE that that plan INCLUDES my WH.

I KNOW that either way, I WILL be okay.

You are in that reflective and figuring out part of Plan B. There is much to be learned there. That's why I told you this was a good idea for a thread.

Haha, I didn't start this thread as a NW Plan B self-recovery thread. It's intent was to discuss the dynamic between Hope and Expectations specifically while a BS is in Plan A, giving all without getting anything back in return, and keeping your emotions in check while doing so.

I almost think that idea/definition of hope should be re-written for BS in Plan A. This is what I wrote about Hope on my original Post on this thread.

"Your HOPE is that you have the time, the strength, the patience, and the resolve; to do everything that you can do in Plan A to make your marriage a better option than divorce. Chances are that you will never know if your Plan A was good enough or if your M is worth recovery until Plan B so don't worry about that right now."

That implied:
-To do everything you can do in Plan A (the carrot and the stick).
-Hope that YOU have the time, strength, the patience, and the resolve (not hoping that your WS will react to given $$LB deposit).
-To make you Marriage a better option than Divorce (a good Plan A).
-Not to worry about Plan B or weather your Plan A was good enough (take advantage of the time with your WS now).

I really am enjoying this topic and I love all the responses so far. It really gets you thinking.

I hate thinking.

We'd already discovered that a long time ago...

Awesome thread guys. This is helpful to me, and I'm sure many other BS's out there can get a lot out of it.

NW,

You touched on some very profound points regarding Plan A. Dr. H mentions them too.

Plan A, even in the best of executions, is very emotionally draining and debilitating for the BS. He/she must exercise tremendous self-control, determination, and patience to avoid LB�ing and/or breaking down out of frustration and the pain of continual �rejection�. In most cases, the BS�s efforts in Plan A will be met by the WS with (at best) skepticism & stonewalling and (often) outright hostility and derision. The anguish this causes the BS is enormous�he/she sees their WS�s reactions as cold-hearted, two-faced, unreachable, and massively un-empathetic (all of which is TRUE). It requires a great deal of strength and restraint to fight through that w/o lapsing into depression or retaliation.

Dr. H alludes to all this (he actually discussed PTSD as a possible BS-outcome) and therefore recommends than Plan A be time-limited as the BS can only hold out so long in the face of such emotional abuse�and THERE IS NOTHING MORE ABUSIVE THAN INFIDELITY (as documented in multiple psychological studies�its worse than rape or serious physical assault).

He advises than Plan A be considerably shorter for BWs than for BHs. I�m sure his reasoning is two-fold:
1) He knows that WW-affairs are generally more emotionally-addicted and therefore harder to break than WH-affairs and�
2) He probably reasons that women typically can tolerate the continued emotional firestorm for less time than men, given the male brain�s greater capacity for compartmentalization.

I agree with your assessment of �hope� in Plan A. A BS must hope that he/she can successfully �plant that seed� (and make themselves a better person & partner in the process) while expecting little-to-nothing in return from their WS at that point. Plan B is required in 85% of cases as Dr. Harley says�whether or not the relationship is eventually reconciled or divorced.

SDCW,
Good to have you around.

NW,

To me the difference between hope and expectation in Plan A is related to time as much as anything. Hope is anticipation of something in the future, a goal that is kept in focus whether or not it is ever achieved.

Expectations are doing something and expecting an immediate result that is measurable or observable as an immediate response to what we do.

When we do something to meet and EN of a wayward spouse, we need to be doing it based on the goal of winning the WS back and getting a shot at recovering the marriage. What so often happens is we do something we think will make a difference in the battle and throw all of our efforts into that single attempt only to find that the battle is not over yet and we need to keep fighting.

Expecting a WS to suddenly reverse direction, fall at our feet and beg forgiveness, completely submitting to our desired goal of having a happy marriage is not only unlikely, it is unreasonable.

Consider a game plan for a football game (the American kind, not this stuff that can end in a tie and still affect the outcome of the tournament.) A team might know that the base defense of the opponent is centered around the middle linebacker reading the play as it develops and reacting by either flowing to the ball on a run or turning on the jets and trying to disrupt a pass play by getting in the face of the quarterback.

So a team will begin to mix and match passing and running plays, often at odd times like a deep pass on first down or a draw play on third and long. They might do this down after down with little visible result at first. But if they know that getting a running back beyond the ability of the middle linebacker to make the play will result in a long gain, they might keep pounding the ball, attacking the line at different points in hope that the linebacker might misread just one play.

But by doing this they are also doing something else. They are forcing the linebacker to react to every play, every attempt to move the ball and focusing their attack in a way that requires a counter play by that one guy in order to overcome their play.

Now if they don't give up on the plan and keep pounding the ball inside, while still doing the other stuff that goes along with a pass play like sending three receivers deep on one side or mixing two crossing routes with a fade to one corner, as the opposition begins to "cheat" a bit one way or the other, eventually either the run will break through and gain a bunch of yardage or a receiver will find himself wide open with nothing between him and the goal line but grass and chalk lines.

The HOPE is that they can score a touchdown. Their expectation on each and every play is simply to do what they know will give them the best chance to accomplish that goal and not worry about the fact that the middle linebacker has been able to read the play correctly and counter it during the entire first half of the game.

Of course in a football game, you also have to play defense and protect your own goal line as well and this is where taking care of yourself comes into Plan A. While you can't stop attacking you also have to make sure the other team doesn't score when you let down your guard. So part of the plan must include a regrouping, a strategy to sustain the effort and a way to make sure that you don't lose your ability to keep moving the ball on offense by falling behind in the game and having to abandon your game plan.

Most of Plan A is offensive. You pound the effort with every opportunity. You press constantly and consistently in an effort to move toward the goal. But you also have to know that you will not allow a big play to be made against you. If you allow your expectation to overcome your ability to remain focused and constantly go for broke, or relax your defenses so that something the WS does gets to you and causes you to react in a way that does more damage than good, then you can lose the game simply by allowing the justification of the affair to flourish by giving the WS reasons to want to continue moving away from you rather than returning.

* Meet ENs
* Do what can be done to make the affair less viable, attacking it anywhere there is a weakness
* Avoid Love Busters and negative reactions that will allow the affair to gain ground and strength
* Keep the goal in sight while not expecting any single effort to suddenly break the game wide open.

Even when you score, the game continues until the gun sounds. It is the one who is ahead at the end of the game that is the winner and you will only win or lose by continuing to try to win until you hear that gun go off. Giving up because the play didn't go as planned is what will cause you to lose for sure. You might not win if you do everything right, but if you stop trying because you thought it would be easier or you thought that the previous play would work differently, you are certain to lose in the end.


Hope=Restored marriage
Expectation=Anticipated reaction to a single act

Focus on the former and let go of the latter.

Mark