This is my first post here. I have read multiple other posts, and almost all of the free advice on MarriageBuilders.com. I'm not sure where to go from here though . . .

I have been married for 3 years now, and already my wife and cheated on me three times. I could not believe it, since we never just jumped into the marriage; we had known each other for nine year prior to getting married. Then shortly after marriage, she kept telling me that she was in love with some other guy from her hometown, but because she also loved me, she went through the wedding. I never had a clue, or maybe I refused to believe that she was not happy. In any case, for 8 long months she kept in touch with this other guy via internet chatting, and over and over she would say she did not want to leave me and she chose me over him, and that she would stop contact with this other person. But she kept breaking that promise, and over and over I found out that she was messaging him behind my back. I must admit, I was very neglectful of my wife that first year of marriage; my job required 80 hrs work weeks at the time, which left me little time with her. It also left me little time track her and see what she was doing. In any case, one day she found out that he had moved on, that he had a girlfriend, and was cutting ties with my wife. She fell into a deep depression, but after a few months we were back together, and our marriage was happy.

Or so it seemed. After a year and a half of marriage, she became more distant to me, leaving to 'study' with other grad students for her class, getting easily irritated, neglecting the apartment. The more distant she became, the more I tried to be loving. But I was also starting to get suspicious, and I started getting easily irritated too. One day, going through her phone text messages, I found that she was having an affair with another grad student. I could not believe it. We separated for two weeks after that. After talking things over with her, she told me that I was not intimate with her enough like before, that I was too controlling, and that I didn't support her career. It hurt me badly after she told me that, but I didn't want to give up on our marriage yet. It was at that point I first read MarriageBuilders, and learned how affairs happen, and all about love busters and meeting each other's needs. I was still in love with her so I gave her another chance. We went to marriage counseling, and I tried, I really really tried to change my faults, the ones that she said drove her to sleep with another man. Probably my biggest mistake at that time was not going through MarriageBuilders with my wife; I had done all the reading myself and thought that the marriage counseling would help.

It did not help. They just repeated what we said, summarized, ask us questions but didn't provide any direction or answers. For five months, I tried very hard to work on our marriage, to rebuild our love. She said she stopped contact with that other guy, and secretly I learned to track her phone, and as she promised, she never went to that guys house or saw him again. But I was paranoid. Crazily paranoid. Sometimes I would ask her where she was and who she was studying with, and I would drop by just to see if it was true. But everything was fine . . . until two weeks ago checking her e-mail I found her flirting with yet a third guy. I was pissed; I was trying so hard to work on our marriage and she is flirting with yet another guy (flirting only, no sex). But it did not matter, I kicked her out and we have been separated since.

I guess my question is, do you think my marriage has any hope? I find that I have hardly any love for her anymore, but after thinking it over, even knowing I'll probably be hurt again, I feel that I made a promise to God and to her to never give up 'in good times and bad', and so I've been thinking of giving it another shot. But sometimes I think that I should just cut loose now. We have no kids. We have no house, our careers are just starting, we are still young (I'm mid 30's, she is late 20's). Maybe we should divorce?

My second question is, if we do work on our marriage again, where should I start? I have actually ordered five books from the website:
Surviving and Affair
Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Five steps to Romantic Love (workbook)
His needs, Her needs
Love busters

I think alot of it overlaps with the website. This time, in addition to marriage counseling, I both my wife and I to go through Dr. Harley's plan, but nowhere does he say which book to start with. Or maybe we should start off watching the online videos. I have no idea.

Sorry for such a long post. Maybe if someone could point me to all those abbreviations you use (what does OP, WF, OW mean? WTF???), I could shorten things up a bit.

Any opinions are welcome, good or bad. Thanks.

Hi Jah, sorry you have reason to be posting here, but glad you found us.

Here is a link to help you decipher MB language:
Acronmys & Abbreviations

Until SAA arrives, you should read this: How To Survive Infidelity

As for the books, read SAA first. You need to follow the steps if you want your marriage to recover from this affair.

Your wife is a serial cheater. You have only been married for a brief time, and you have no children together. Whether you want to recover your marriage, that decision remains up to you. No one here would fault you from walking away, IMO your WW's serial cheating has given you a get out of marriage free card if you choose it.

However, if you and your WW are on board with MB and both a committed to recovering your marriage, you CAN build an affair-proof marriage and restore romantic love using Dr H's principles.

Thanks for the link. I think it might be too much to remember, plus I might start making things up and misreading things. So I think I'm going to stick to typing everything out.

Welcome to Marriage Builders.

Whom have your WW's affairs been exposed to?
Exposure 101

I am not a vet, and am sure they will be along shortly.

Meanwhile, I'll give you my 2 cents.

Your WW is addicted to getting her EN's met by other men. She seeks it out, and has no boundaries in place to protect your marriage. This needs to change if you are to recover your marriage.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but WW seems to have had little consequences from her A's. If any. She has the A, gets EN's met, you discover and get all upset, she ends it for a while until you calm down, and bam, the next A is on.

You don't want to continue this surely?

Exposure is the key. Hold her accountable. Let everyone of influence know, so WW sees her actions in the light of day.
Exposure 101

I have not exposed it to anyone. It's a little tricky situation; my wife's family (and her first affair) resides in another country. So I didn't expose him at all; I wouldn't even know who to contact. I didn't expose her second one either, he is a single guy living alone going to grad school; the only one I confronted is him. After the third one we have been separated since.

I can't bring myself to tell my family yet. I also can't expose things to her family because they don't speak English well! But they already know actually, my wife has told them what has happened and they have ALL chastised her and told her to stop; they are basically on my side.

Were any of the OM married?

I know the one was single, but the other two?

If any of these OM were married, the BW's have a right to know the truth about their WH's and the state of their marriages.

So they can decide what they want to do.

IMO, it is better to KNOW you are being betrayed, than to be driven bonkers with suspicions.

No, none of the three are married. All three are single guys. None of them even have girlfriends, except the first one. Well, it's because of having a girlfriend that my wife gave up on him. But I can't expose him, can't tell his girlfriend (even if I wanted to, and believe me I would), because he is in another country, and barely speaks English. Besides, he has been with this girlfriend AFTER breaking it off with my wife, so it's not like he was cheating on her.

Which brings up a question for me; is it more common for affairs to be with single guys or married ones? I would think it would be harder for two married people to get together, because they would BOTH be putting their marriage at risk.

To answer your question, affairs happen when a spouse with poor boundaries allows another person who is not their spouse to meet their emotional needs. This makes deposits in their lovebank (LB$). When the balance is high enough, the WS no longer feels "in love" with their BS. They "love" the affair partner (AP).

Married or single AP doesn't really matter. It is all about boundaries, EN's and LB$.

For what its worth, the OW in my sitch is single. But there are many cases here where AP's are both married and tear apart two families to get their fix.

Now, I want you to refocus on the plans and what is important.

Exposure.

You need to do this. Expose your WW. Don't let fear stop you from taking the right action to protect yourself and your marriage from further A's.

Besides, you will only be telling the truth. If WW is truly committed to recovery, she should have no issue with that.

Okay, I agree to full exposure, but to who? The second affair she actually was having sex with the guy. This guy is a single grad student. I couldn't get ANY information on him. Not his job, not his parents, nothing. He has no facebook page (hard to believe, but true). How do I get information on his parents and friends?

Besides, my wife has stopped seeing him (I know because I have been tracking her), and she has moved on to affair number three. But I'm not sure I should call it an affair. The extent of the affair it this: she wrote to him, "You have a cute smile." And he wrote back to her. "I've been thinking of you alot." That's it. No sex. No other contact. But it was enough for me to leave my wife, because after all I had been doing to try and work on our marriage, she still didn't really care.

Jah,

Sorr you're here. You should get some responses shortly about how to find information on the previous OMs. I'm just going to give you my 2 cents based on my personal story.

You should seriously consider leaving her. I've been married 9 years now, and I recently found out that my wife has been having affairs the whole time. She was just as Caracal described: She liked having her emotional needs met by other men (and she is very attractive, so this is pretty easy for her to do.) She may never have intended these encounters to manifest themselves into a PA, but they did...time and time again. If your wife doesn't put EPs in place, they will for her too.

My advice: get out while you can, before you bring a kid into a marriage that is fractured to the core. It makes things infinitely more difficult.

jah, i have 5 children with a woman who has had 2 affairs (that i know of) and counting. we are in the middle of D process. you have no children yet. can you imagine "reconciling" with her only to discover at some point down the road that she is cheating again (and again) on you but this time with children? you would have to break up your family then. run while you can my friend. please consider that very strongly.

I have just read two positions that I should just divorce. However, I just cannot give up our marriage just yet. I have not tried marriage builders yet, and also, I have not done full exposure.

As I read my responses to several people already telling me to do full exposure, I agree it's absolutely the right thing to do, IF she was still seeing this guy.

But why should I expose my wife now? To be honest, I read about Exposure 101 only a few days ago. But before that, my wife has said she wants to work on our marriage. She agreed to stop seeing this guy. For all I can tell, she is being honest (but who knows, right?)

And also, if I am going to expose the most recent affair, but the problem is, I don't have the strongest proof. I found a handful (maybe 5) e-mails from her to this guy. Most of it was just friendly talk, but what constituted as 'too friendly' to me was that she wrote to him, "I think you have a cute smile." and at one point he said, "I think about you alot." To me that is more than just friendly talk. But is that considered an affair?

But that's it. I have nothing else on him. She said she has never slept with him, never went to his house. I tracked her phone, I checked her phone calls, so it seems to check out. But after I read those e-mails, it was enough for me to throw her out and separate.

So my question, is that amount of 'cheating' enough to fully expose him? Should I do more snooping around? (not sure what else to do; keylogger? My wife has a macintosh).

Her second affair is not 6 months in the rear-view mirror. If I had known about exposure 101, I would have done it at the time, but now it is 6 months later and he is out of the picture.

Exposing will help hold her accountable because she will have people watching her.

Jah, they ALL say that. They ALL say they have stopped contact, please don't tell anyone... all of them. She also said her wedding vows while in love with another man. She also agreed to be faithful, but is a 3x loser that you know of.

Her words do not mean a thing, and if you choose to seek recovery that is your choice, but you cannot trust her words right now.

So yes, full exposure is still necessary. You are right now being an accomplice to her adultery by allowing her to get away with it. She gets caught with her hand in the cookie jar several times and you say "don't do it again... don't do it again... don't do it again..." -> she has no consequences, why would she stop. Yes, you said you separated and 'threw her out' - but you are willing to take her back and let her hide what she's done. So, no consequences.

You must find out more. If these men are single, as you say, then they aren't going to waste their time entertaining her without any physical contact (either immediate or near future). If they are single, they have nobody to answer to at home, no woman waiting at their house, etc. It is even easier to conduct a PA. You must be aware of this and find out the truth. Demand a polygraph as a condition of recovery.

You say you knew her for many years before and she is from another country, was your relationship with her before marriage primarily from a distance. How well did know her 'in person' before you married her.

And finally, no kids right now or near future, take your precautions. Single men willing to entertain a married women will almost certainly be around the block with who-knows-what diseases.

Your WW is likely a serial cheater - she is addicted to affairs vs one OP.

There are some serial cheaters (this is my STBX) who need to have ALL opportunity for an affair taken away...ie, she needs to have a job working with you, you will need to always closely monitor her internet/cell&texting use, etc, you two will need to spend ALL of your free time together, etc. This sounds like it could be your WW.

Is that something you think that she will ever agree to? Will you be happy being married to someone who you will have to monitor so closely?

This is also the type of person who will probably have difficulty adhering to the PORH considering her history of having a secret second life...which makes it difficult to use many of the MB tools.

Not having children together and not having a good marital history prior to the As does not give you too much to work with, you know? I definitely would strongly consider Plan D.

Sorry you are here and welcome...

Since you have already booted her out of the house, she is likely in contact with her OM's right now. "He kicked me out... we're married only on paper right now". Remember this. MB does not endorse separation during recovery under most circumstances, it allows the adulterer to continue their ways with practically no way for you to know what's going on.

These contacts all seem to be by e-mail and phone, did you meet her online or date her distance. It seems to be a pattern for her.

Thank you for all your advice. I realize that I am 'enabling' her by not going to full exposure. You are all correct. She needs to learn the consequences and right now she is cheating over and over because there is none. And letting her family and friends also know will be helpful because they will hold her accountable.

To Alis - Yes, I did know my wife for 9 years. I went to visit her country seven times. And prior to that we spent almost a year together here in my country. I'm not sure that constitutes getting to know someone well, but it's not like we met and just got married. We also had her tested recently and she was negative for all the STD's. Thank God also not pregnant.

Also, regarding booting her out of the house. What really happened is that I made her go back to her home country. Not permanently, but to visit her family and because I couldn't stand the thought of her continuing to have her affair. So yes, she could be carrying it on by e-mail and phone and I don't know, but at least I know there's nothing physical until she gets back at the end of June.

I am going to go for full exposure; I'm going to read up all about it on that 'exposure 101', and then as suggested, do it all in one day. Currently my plan is as follows:
- Expose this to all her family and friends, anyone who will listen. It doesn't matter if they already know. I am going to tell my side of the story. I am going to tell them exactly what she did, and that I want this to end and if she is willing to work on our marriage then so will I.
- Expose this guy, her 'third affair'. He's a grad student, some lowly teacher assistant at the university. I'm a physician and clinical faculty at that same university. I am going to ruin his life. I am going to expose everything to his supervisors, to his collegues. I have his facebook and he has 260+ 'acquantences'. I don't say friends, because who could be friends with such an A$$. So I am going to reveal it to every single one of those facebook 'acquantences' also. And I wish I could find out his relatives, or at least his parents. I'd like to give them a call and expose it to them too, but all those 'reverse white page' lookups don't work.

In any case, I am going to get my plan together and then do it all in 1-2 days. Thank you everyone for listening to my case; I'm sure you hear something similar over and over again. Thank you for your advice; I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

jah, I agree you should expose her affairs wide and far. The more people who know, the more people to hold her accountable.

However, unless she is willing to make radical changes in her lifestyle to prevent more cheating, you are facing a life of holy hell. You will live a death of a thousand cuts on a long slow road to divorce. It won't be too long before you grow to hate her if there is much more of this.

Your wife is not marriage material in the first place and you have made a terrible choice for the mother of your children. I hope she can change, but I would strongly suggest you don't have children with her. It is not fair to drag innocent children into this nightmare of a marriage. '

And be sure and tell your own family, especially your parents, so they can support you.

There are some people for whom marriage should not be an option and it sounds like she is one of them. You took the vows seriously, she did not. Sometimes it's better to cut your losses rather than invite the burglar back in to take some more.

If you're adamant that you want to try and save this marriage, you have your work cut out for you. I would expose to family, friends, workplaces, etc. of all three APs, it doesn't matter if the A has ended, they all need to know. And you don't know for a fact that they didn't have GFs when they were w/your wife.

I think you should follow your instincts on this one. 3 As in 3 years of M? GET OUT AS FAST AS YOU CAN.

FWIW, it's quite likely that she was fooling around on you even before you were M'd. It's unlikely that she waited until a ring was on her finger before fooling around. Have you ever raised that question with her?

Get a polygraph from her, it's the only way you'll get the complete truth. And post your polygraph questions here beforehand so we can see if there's anything important being left out.

You can't move forward w/o all truth out in the open.

Jah

I am sorry you are here, but file and walk away. There are too many good women out there, you deserve to be someones first choice, not the fourth or however many POSOM'S she has.

I have now read 8-10 people who have suggested just cutting loose for 'plan D' as you call it. Many of them involve opinions involving kids, as in it is easier now since kids are not involved.

Well, unfortunately I just cannot bring myself to do it. Yes, I know it has been three affairs in three years, but I am not sure if I have worked on our marriage the right way. Things like exposure, going through the 'marriage builders' guidelines, insisting on 100% transparency. I am going to make strict requirements as suggested like:
1. end all contact with the OM for life
2. no more nights apart or going out without each other - create a healthy, integrated lifestyle
3. complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc
4. no more opposite sex friendships
5. complete honesty about her affair<s> � passing a polygraph
6. commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

If she doesn't agree or despite this, it happens again, at that point I will go to plan D.

But that last part - pass a polygraph? Really? I wouldn't know where to begin with finding one or how to arrange for one. I also don't know what questions to ask. "Were you cheating on me before we got married?" "How many times did you have sex, and with which guy?" "Are any of the guys married?"

I don't know what else; is this a common theme? Is there another topic out there about polygraphs?

I would cut your losses and call it quits. Three affairs during what should be the newlywed years is a giant Be glad you don't have children with this woman.

Sorry for your heartache.

Agree completely. As said above, sorry for the pain you are going through right now. You deserve better and there is better out there. Cut your losses pal. This isn't worth the effort you would have to put into it and from what I can see her "efforts" would be nothing more than window dressing. She's a serial cheater. You can't fix that, and shouldn't even make an attempt after only 3 years of marriage.

God Bless

Please listen to these radio clips of a BH finding out his WW was having an affair the whole 10 years of their marriage. They also have no children together.
Radio Clip on a 10 year affair during their marriage
Segment #2
Segment #3

since you're keeping score, i'm going to add my voice. yes, i agree with the others that you should divorce. your WW has failed the wife test; totally wiped out.

however, if you feel you cannot file for D yet, there's another very important thing you need to know. you cannot recover a marriage when one person, *especially* the BS, is doing all the work! unless your wife commits to the marriage and does the work, you've only got another three long, empty, cheating years ahead of you. you've tried this already and gotten your heart broken again and again and again.

if you don't have the opportunity to expose the men, you still MUST expose your wife - to everyone: family, friends, colleagues. she is a dangerous, loose woman, and will need all hands on deck to keep her accountable.

don't waste your youth. find another young woman who will be loving and faithful, and be glad you had the opportunity to meet her before you ended up in an even bigger, longer mess that soured your love for a woman and involved innocent children in a broken home with a wayward mother.

i am very sorry for your heartbreak and pain. but you are in the right place, whether you try to recover the marriage or not. the healing you will find here for yourself will help you greatly.

Jah,

I don't know what country you are in, but if you're in the US setting up a polygraph is quite simple. If you want to recover this marriage, this is absolutely necessary. Are you sure it was only three affairs? I only knew about one affair before I demanded the poly. Then I found out about the other five OMs, the OW, and the three EAs. Get the poly.

It's fine that you're not ready to divorce yet...just understand that unless she makes radical changes to her behavior, these affairs will continue. You CANNNOT change her behavior though, only she can. Are you willing to put in the excruciatingly painful work that needs to be done in order to TRY and save a marriage that was never good from the start? I'm not saying it can't be done, if you BOTH follow the plan...but it's going to be a long, tough road.

Wether you decide to plan D or not, you need to expose...so I'm glad you are looking into that. Don't let her off easy by just walking away quietly.

Exactly. Jah, the best action you can make is to expose her A's to all of your family and friends. This way you keep your options open. It gives you time to make up your mind and think logically about your situation and what is best for YOU. Whether your recover your marriage or divorce, exposing gives you the support you will need.

Thank you for all your advice.

BrainHurts - I listened to the radioclip. I'm not exactly sure how that relates to me, unless you are suggesting that 10 years down the line I might still be deceived, and that I should get out now. It also mentioned about 'getting to know my wife better than I have ever.' I guess that is good advice, but I think at this stage I am not even thinking about that. I'm still debating on if I should give this marriage another shot.

There are still alot of people here advising me not to try, telling me to just give it up. I'm glad there are a few of you that also tell me that there is a chance, although you are honest in saying it will be a very long and tough road with no promises. I understand that, but that's what I'm willing to do if she is willing to make the changes also.

I have started the process of exposure. I went on facebook of the OM (my first acronym!). My first step was to save all his 262 'friends' onto my hard drive as a webpage file. I have started to send messages to his contacts; I have prioritized it with his family first, then workmates, then current friends. I don't want to send it to them all since I have heard that people get banned or locked out if you send to many at once.

In any case, I started sending it to his family, and within 12 hours, he actually shut down and closed his facebook account! So thank goodness I saved all those contacts to my hard drive. It will not do him any good since I still have them. So I still send out messages in small groups, and hope to be done within 2-3 days.

My wife was furious of course. He called her, that coward, probably begging her to keep me from ruining his life. She in turned called me and said that she has been thinking carefully about our marriage, and wants to work on it. But that she does not want me to continue with this 'exposure'.

I almost laughed in her face. She wants to work on our marriage just to protect this [censored]? I told her that no, it would not stop. That I am going to expose him, and her, to everyone. I have not felt so empowered before, it was such a great feeling! I told her that I had e-mailed her a list of non-negotiable conditions before I even consider working on our marriage. I told her to look them over, think carefully, and let me know if she would accept them. Otherwise, I wanted a divorce. She kept begging me over and over, giving reason after reason not to expose, and at one point I just hung up on her.

I will continue with my exposure of this OM. I am also drafting a letter to her family (it's hard because they don't speak English), so exposure will be a little more difficult. But once I have a friend to translate it for me, that is going out also.

I will keep you posted on how it goes. I still am not sure if working on our marriage will still be possible or not, and I guess only time will tell. But regardless on which way it goes, I hope I get get some advice and support from you all to help me through this.

I sincerely thank you for listening to my long rants.

P.S. Still not getting that polygraph thing. Three people now say it's 'essential'. Anybody know of a forum topic with more details, as in what I need to ask and what is the exact purpose?

Good job, Jah.

The reason people are telling you to get a polygraph is because your wife is a serial cheater and lied to you about being in love with another man on your wedding day. She has lied about this, she is certainly lying about other things. It is for your own sake to learn what is true and what is not, so that you can make a proper decision. You may decide if she is telling the truth, to go ahead with trying to recover. You may decide, if she is still lying, to choose to divorce. The polygraph is for YOUR own knowledge because she cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

jah, you are doing AWESOME. Great job on the exposure to OM#1. I would suggest getting files on ALL your OM's and your wife friend/family list asap as she has been tipped off to this exposure and will likely try to contact any other OM's with a warning, or do damage control herself. It will take you awhile but I would suggest you keep plugging away at it today and get it done to everyone in one fell swoop.

Also, I can't remember if you have discussed Extraordinary Precautions on your thread, these are the expectations you are setting that she will need to follow in order to stay married to you. (PS LOVE the backbone here, this is exactly how you need to present it) There are many samples/examples of EP's on this forum and people can help you with this if you post yours, help you fine tune it to make sure you include everything that is going to help you create rock solid boundaries in your M, and also give advice on specific ones to your sitch. With your WW's track record, she needs very specific boundaries and a very narrow path.

Good job on exposure.

Did you also hear from the clip on Dr. H telling the BH that he and his wife need to have a life that is completely together? Where they need to be together always? That's why they were in a RV and traveling. That his WW neeeded to stop everything that allowed her to have a secret second life.

Do you think you can accomplish this?

Well done, Jah! I too felt that same sense of empowerment. Looking back, I can't ever remember why I was so hesitant to expose. What is so wrong with telling people the truth?

Be prepared for the second guessing though...it came for me within two days of exposure. Just remember that any consequences that these people face are because of THEIR actions, not exposure. Never give up your exposure list. Never waver. Regardless of wether you choose divorce or recovery, you will know that you made the right decision for you. That's what following the plan is all about. You're doing awesome. Keep it up.

Thanks again everyone for all the support. It does help

AJoseJake - I am not second guessing my decision to expose yet, but it was really, really hard to do that initially. I think I am one of those 'non-conflict' personality types, so this is a pretty big deal for me.

BrainHurts - I'm not sure if I could do that, live in an RV. The problem is that I am a physician . . . so I'm going to try an look for a position that doesn't have overnight calls. Unless my wife sleeps with me at the hospital.

Unwritten - Not sure Extrordinary Precautions you are talking about, but here is the list of my conditions. Also the facebook message I sent out:

These are my non-negotiable conditions IF you want to work on our marriage:
1. End all contact with the xxx for life. This involves writing a no contact letter stating you do not want to see him again.
2. I will expose everything that you have done to me to my friends, your friends, my family, your family. I will tell them that despite this, I want to work on our marriage and if I someday forgive you, I expect them to forgive you also.
3. I will expose everything that has happened to xxx's workmates, family, friends. Everyone. I will tell them that despite what you have done, I still want to work on my marriage. I will ask them to use whatever influence they have to try and prevent him from affecting our marriage further.
4. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
5. Complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about your affair<s>
6. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

Facebook Message:
Dear friend/family of xxx xxx:
It grieves me to write this letter but I believe you should know the kind of person he really is. xxx has been having an affair with my wife. If you have any influence on xxx, please do what you can to get him to stop. I want to stay married, but the affair must end. I also hope that knowing this will help you to protect yourself and/or your significant other from him.

I would be happy to provide the evidence to anyone who asks.

Thank you, xxx

Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't saying about living in a RV, but making your lives so intergrated that she can't have a second secret life.

If she has promoted her A's through use of text, chat, email, facebook, etc. you should also include that she is no longer able to use those methods of communication or social media.

You can also add more specific ones, such as if she has a tendency to take her phone with her into the bathroom and you feel she does that for privacy to talk to AP's, make it a condition that she not do that. As an example.

Did you decide against a poly? I looked back and noticed you had incorporated it the first time, but not this time. I believe that neither party can commit to full recovery if there are still lies between them, since she has been serial cheating your entire relationship, you cannot possibly think you have all information. This goes for her too, IMO, if she is still hiding secrets it will be difficult for HER to engage in recovery because of the guilt. The poly will give you the opportunity to get all cards on the table and make your decision based on the truth, rather than the truth as you know it, and will give you a clean slate of truth to move forward in recovery with.

Listen to this excellent radio clip on polygraphs.
Radio clip on polygraphs

Make sure it is NC with ALL her AP's. She writes the letter and YOU read it and YOU mail it.

Exposure doesn't need to be part of the EP's. And in fact, you are not supposed to 'warn' her about exposure and give her the opportunity to do damage control (ie tell everyone you are controlling and crazy and paranoid, etc.), you are just supposed to do it in one fell swoop.

I also believe you have talked about her study groups. She is no longer able to study in groups without you present or with other men. She had this opportunity and abused it.

Complete honesty about the A's: this is something you will not know unless verified by a poly. Trust but VERIFY as the saying goes around here.

P.S. Still not getting that polygraph thing. Three people now say it's 'essential'. Anybody know of a forum topic with more details, as in what I need to ask and what is the exact purpose? [/quote]

Jah,

The polygraph thing. Important you listen to the radio clip on polygraphs by Dr. Harley as posted by Brainhurts.

My background... I was in affairs up to eyeballs and and got busted. Thanks to my DS (legtx1) and her willingness not to give up on our marriage, she had me take not one poly, but two, and the third is forthecoming. She was insistent upon it and for that, and her, I am grateful.

I am a Federal Law Enforcement Agent and the thought of taking a poly made me angry. Of course, I was still in the fog and thought I could get through it without disclosing everything. However, for my DS to continue in this marriage, and begin to try and trust again, she needed to uncover things about my wayward behaviour so she could move on one way or another.

The polygraph examiners of today are incredible. Despite my background in law enforcement and my abilities to detect deceit and the belief I had good grasp of how things would go, I was telling truths before I was even hooked up to all the devices.

Dr. Harley's radio spot is exceptional in that it he explains that a poly tends to be a good thing. He does say the one challenged will be angry. I feel anger is a natural reaction to the fact that the wayward is getting called out on his or her waywardness. That was my reaction. Dr. Harley adds that snooping is a good thing which, along with a polygraph, helps substantiate or backup what the wayward is saying.

What you are ultimately working towards is a way to begin a fresh start at trusting your wayward again. Extraordinary precautions play a huge roll in this along with transparency.

The questions asked on polygraph may include:

1. Do you have a secret email accounts, chat room access, addtional phones, instant message accounts?
2. Have you chatted with persons while making it appear you were playing smart phone games such as words with friends, scramble, hanging with friends etc.
3. Other than what we discussed, are there more affairs you have not disclosed to me?
4. Other than what we discussed, have you engaged in inappropriate conversation with a male/female that would dishonor your marriage?
5. Other than what we discussed, have you had sex, oral or otherwise, with a male/female who is not your husband/wife
6. In the past (X amount of time) have you had sex, oral or otherwise, with a male/female who is not your husband/wife?

...Just to name a few. A good polygraph examiner will ask you to provide a series of questions prior to the examination and he will narrow the scope of his exam to point that you and he can agree on. The exam usually consists of not more than 5 questions which pertain to the waywards actions.

Good luck and hang in there.

I would divorce w/what I know about serial cheaters, but if you choose to work out this M, you will need to adhere to a STRICT PLAN!!! Don't waffle, don't let her cave you in. Polygraphs are often utilized to get all the cards on the table. She is a liar and a cheat and you cannot believe what she tells you...hence a polygraph (they're in the yellow pages, google one for your area, you make an appt. just like with the dentist, it may vary different parts of the country, but probably about $200 should cover it). I see you made your list of requirements, the veterans here will respond and add to the list or suggest changes if needed.

Also, what are these study groups...is she a teacher? If an A happened in conjunction w/her job, they will need to be exposed to as well.

It angers me that she tries to protect OM from exposure...the one she should want to protect/care about is YOU! That will need to change if you are to save your M.

I think your wife is lucky to have you...I only hope SHE thinks so someday.

Also Polygraph Testing

Okay, after 8+ posts of polygraphs, I totally agree with it now. If we ever work on our marriage, I will include it in the conditions that she do a polygraph.

So I have exposed the OM. HE was pissed, threatened me with libel, slander, harrassment, invasion of privacy, etc. He said he will have my arrested with a felony, revoke my medical license. (I had another post - Exposure Emergency) Um, right. I checked with two good friends who are also lawyers; they both said nothing he is threatening would hold up in court.

So . . . I also exposed my wife to her friends and family also, without warning. She was so pissed at me, of course. She was absolutely angry! Some of her friends started writing back to me offering me support. My wife I guess went crazy after I exposed things that she went and messaged them all back with this to 'try and explain herself' I guess (one of her friends forwarded it to me so that I know):

I would like to share with you the story today so that you could be more understanding and please do not judge any of us just in case you have heard any piece of information about this.

My husband and I have separated twice for the last 10 months. It has been rough for me for the last 4 years. It has been getting worse and worse for the past year. Currently we are separated again. Right now I am facing a crisis in my life, trying to decide what I should do that I would not regret . I treasure the relationship that I have had with my husband and the love that he has for me. I will always care and love him. But the love I have for him, I am not sure if that is the love between a man and a woman. He was my best friend for many years before we got married. He was always there for me. He is still my best friend now. We got married in 2009 because of many reasons. This wedding also did not happen like any other weddings. Since then it has not been truly a marriage. I know that everybody think that we have been living as a happy couple but it is not true. Maybe because we care about each other so much that we live with each other, or maybe I have just been confused between love and care. I am very confused right now. I have been confused for a long time. My husband always has been a person for me to share the ups and downs in my life that I thought I could live with him for the rest of my life. I know he loves me. I know that I truly care about him. He is the nicest man that I have ever met. He has always been the person for me to lean on since I we dated when I became 21, he was 27. For more than a year now that I started to wonder whether or not we should live together for the rest of our lives.
I have been feeling lonely and depressed for a very long time. I know that there is something missing in this marriage. I have been trying to make it work for 3 years now. We got separated and then back together twice. It has been tough for both of us. I have always been very truthful to my husband about how I feel about him. I have told him hundreds of time that I feel lonely and that I am confused about the love I have for him, and that I want marriage counseling. We have gone to marriage counseling for 6 months now. I feel guilty toward him because I have not been able to give him the same love that he gives to me.
Recently I have met a man and I have a very special feeling for him.
I do not want to cheat my husband. I want to be fair to my husband also. I told him I have liked this man and I decided to cancel the trip that we planned to New York and other states on this July. I was the person who initiated the separation. I do want to have time to think for myself clearly. I don�t want to be with my husband and be in love or think about another man. I have a very special feeling for this man and I think I am falling for him. I still care very much about my husband. I know that my husband Bernard loves me very much and he wants to work on this marriage so much that he is desperate in trying everything he can to make this marriage work. It hurts me really badly to know that I am hurting him. I know that I have hurt my husband a great deal that I can never forgive myself. I feel hurt too. Till this moment I am not sure what I should do. I am very confused.
I want everyone who knows this story to know that the person I have special feeling for is also a nice man. He has done nothing wrong yet.
I just hope you all understand the situation and do not judge any of us, but please support us if you know any of us.

Three of us are in a very difficult situation. I do want to treat my husband fairly. That is why I moved out to think clearly. I feel really bad for what is happening right now but I do not have intention to hurt any body. I just want to have a happy life. I am really torn.
My intention in writing this is to ask people to be understanding and do not judge any of us and start to gossip, because you do not know what has been going on.


After this message, I'm not sure what to do. First of all, her counter message is full of lies of course. She had an affair THEN wanted separation. We did marriage counseling and she still cheated. There are other lies. So I am not sure if I should message them all again to set things straight, or if it would just make it too complicated and turn people off.

Yes OM can try and blow a lot of empty threats. We knew he had nothing to stand on. You did the right thing.

When your exposure makes the waywards angry then you know it was a bullseye. Good job.

She's trying to rewrite history. That is very typical for a wayward.

Did you offer your evidence when you exposed?

Thanks for the encouragement. No, I did not give direct evidence in the message. I did say I can provide evidence for anyone who asks, however.

So just to go back to my question; alot of what she wrote was made up. False. Her letter is actually quite poorly written. Mine was clear and straightforward. But should I write to everyone to correct her lies?

I have my facebook message (that I sent to her contacts) see below as an example:

I am writing you this message because you are an important person in the lives of xxx and I. xxx has been carrying on an affair with a man named xxx xxx. I am writing to you because I still want to give my marriage a chance. However, our marriage cannot even begin to heal until the affair ends completely. Affairs also thrive in secrecy and that is why I am writing to you now.

I am NOT writing to you so that you confront this man xxx yourself. I have already exposed his actions to his family, friends, workmates, even his parents. I am only asking you two things: 1) If you have any acquaintance with this man xxx, please support our marriage by preventing any chance contact between xxx and my wife ever again. 2) Please do not believe any lies that he may spread about me and my wife. I am only telling you the truth. I will provide evidence if you need it.

Also, if you know of any other affair(s) that someone is/was having with my wife, please let me know, as I WILL expose them also. I am STILL willing to work on our marriage even if more affairs turn up; however, I cannot begin the process of trusting xxx again until the entire truth is revealed.

I am trying to find it in my heart to forgive xxx, and if I can forgive her, I hope you can also and do not hold anything against her. Please support my wife in any way you can. If you see us together, try to treat us like you would any other friend.

Keep in mind that everything I am doing is not out of revenge, but only because I want to do everything possible to give our marriage one last chance. Thank you for your support.

Warmest regards,
xxx

Your exposure letter is great. It's calm, concerned, clear.

Her response is rambling, defensive and pretty nuts if you ask me. I could be wrong and more experienced people will come along in the morning but I don't think you need to respond to her response.

It's pretty easy for most people to see through her justifications here. She just shot herself in the foot with this letter. Also, if some of her friends have been offering YOU support since you exposed, you can bet they see who she is and how she's been behaving. They know the score.

I would refrain if it were me. Let your original letter speak for itself...

Jah, what evidence do you have of WW? I am just catching up on your thread, and am unsure.

Your WW's response to exposure is fog, fog and more fog. Sadly, some people buy into this belief that "well, she deserves to be happy" crap. WE know different, but we are MB educated.

Personally, if I had emails etc that predated your separation, I would send another email with a link explaining if others want to see evidence that her affairs have caused the confusion she is currently feeling, I would send it.

In my sitch, it wasn't until I sent out proof of the A being ongoing prior to separation that I got 100% support. Yes, everyone was outspoken against the A, but they tended to be sucked in to WH's fog. After I sent out proof, they called him on his lies. And I took satisfaction in knowing that with or without marital recovery, WH now knows others just don't buy it.

And from recent threads (especially rainysweet's) it is apparent that MOST exposure targets won't ask for evidence. I know not one asked me, they all just believed me. But if provided, they WILL check it out. RS created a website targets could click on (I am not suggesting you need go to this effort, but attached emails could work) and she is still getting hits on it.

Okay, after exposing my wife and OM, she came out and called me and said yes, she wanted to work on our marriage. I told her it has to be genuine, and she said yes.

However, I listed down the conditions I required, and then she wavered and said she is not sure she can do number 1. So she went back to thinking about it.

1. End all contact with the xxx for life. This involves writing a letter (agreed by me and you) stating you do not want to see him again.
2. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
3. Complete transparency - cell phone, email, facebook, passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about you affair<s> � I will ask you take a polygraph test to see if you have had any other affairs. You see, honesty cannot begin at all until the entire truth is out. Even if I find out there have been more affairs, I will not give up on you.
6. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

Well, you can't go onto the other steps until Step #1 is achieved! You are doing a great job!!

As we were talking, for maybe a good hour, I was calm and composed for about 90% of it. But there were a few flareup here and there, where I had to calm both of us down.

My question is, if she disagrees to #1, then should I still stay in plan A? I read the long post about plan A, and I'm not sure what the goal of it is.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2296184

One part says the goal is to develop a strong sense of self worth. The other says the goal is to make yourself an attractive alternative to the cheating spouse. Isn't the goal also to have them agree to the conditions? Or should I not be bringing up the conditions at this point?

MelodyLane, I have to admit, you are a lifesaver. Every step of the way you give me hope. I feel I'm taking a whole bunch of small steps (even though each one seems huge), and I need support from people like you.

Unfortunately, also in the "The carrot and the stick of plan A", there is a part about when it is close to the end. There are three especially I am experiencing:

Signs the end of Plan A is near
XX You have mental lovebusting conversations telling off your WS .... and now they are starting to become out-loud when you are alone ... like the shower or driving in traffic ... it's almost time
XX You are weeping more not less
XX You cannot eat or sleep

It says that once I get close to the end of Plan A, I should start looking into Plan B. Can someone please send me the link to a summary of Plan B?

I am not sure what you mean by "self worth;" the goal is to bust up the affair. You also make yourself an attractive alternative while setting conditions. You should be discussing what it will take to recover your marriage.

In your case, I wouldn't stay in a Plan A too long. You are on affair #3 and it is clear your wife is not marriage material and never has been. I wouldn't spend too much time waiting for her to make the necessary RADICAL changes.

In fact, I would file for divorce and get legal protection in place. In the time it takes for the divorce to be final, you can determine if she demonstrates the necessary RADICAL changes. If she doesn't do that, you will be divorced and much better off.

There are lots of good women out there, jah, who you can love even more than her, who would be faithful to you. There are much better alternatives for you out there.

jah, here is the link for Plan B. here

I would not suggest staying in Plan A for very long at all, just because of the fact that she is in affair #3. You have essentially been dealing with her affairs for 3 years now. That is much, much longer than is suggested for anyone. I am sure you have been trying to win her back since you got married and it has not made a difference.

Another thing comes to mind, joh. Since your entire marriage has been focused on her affairs and her complete lack of engagement in the marriage, it translates to unconditional love. You have tolerated the absolute worst abuse with no repercussions for her.

Here is what Harley says about unconditional love and I think we can see it describes your situation:


Wouldn't you agree that abuse and neglect characterize your marriage?

Thank you for the link, but I have read that one and the description is very short. "Plan B is for the betrayed spouse to avoid all contact with the wayward spouse until the affair has completely ended and the wayward spouse has agreed to my plan for recovery."

It sounds like plan B is complete separation, and I am okay with that. However, you also say I should just file for divorce and get everything started. Is filing for divorce part of plan B?

I am fine with complete separation, but my wife is completely dependent on me. Her degree is not finished, she has no income, no place to live. Her family is in another country! Should I just have all her stuff in boxes and just leave them at the door for her to pick up? Even if our marriage is over, but I don't want her to end up homeless on the streets. At the same time, I refuse to finance her with the thought that she now can live her life and be with the other guy, while I am financing her.

Dr Harley typically recommends filing for divorce in order to protect yourself legally. In your case, it makes perfect sense, because by filing for divorce you benefit in every way. If she doesn't get on board, you will be divorced and if she does get on board, you can just drop the suit. And I would file for divorce on grounds of adultery if you live in a grounds state. If you do that, the OM will be subpeonaed.

I would not give your wife any money at all unless it is court ordered. She can live with her parents until she gets a job and she can pay for her own education. But she should not expect all the benefits of a marriage that she has NEVER been committed to. You don't even want to finance her affairs/single lifestyle.

I hate to say this, my friend, but I can't help but think that her only goal in marrying you was to get financial support. Is that possible?

That struck my mind too...in which case, wouldn't it be better to find out sooner rather than later?

No, I do not think she was a gold digger. We knew each other 10 years before the marriage, dated at least 8 years prior. This was all before I was even applying to medical school.

Let me describe my wife a little bit for you all. She is very emotional. She is also naive and stubborn. And probably easily swayed. I am not making excuses for her having the affair, but by knowing her personality, this is what I think she would do to each of these choices I see that I have left:

1)Plan A has not worked at all. As melodylane said, I probably have been stuck in a form of plan A for 3 years now. I have done the complete exposure of this guy and my wife. After the initial wave of 'shock and anger', the affair continues like before. I also have no strength left to be in Plan A.

2) If I started a plan B with complete separation, I think she would give in to my conditions fairly quickly. She is in school, makes no money, has no family here, and I don't think the guy would support her. Or if he did, it would not last long.

3) If I filed for divorce (as Melodylane suggested) I am almost certain that once I tell her that I am filing for divorce, she will immediately give up the affair and agree to ALL my conditions I set forth previously. I know this because she still has feelings for me (see in an earlier post how she describes her situation to her friends), she keeps saying she is just 'confused', and I do believe she is just in that 'fog' state of mind.

However, is it okay to start the marriagebuilders program (as well as the rest of my conditions) based upon the threat of divorce? I would have really liked her to realize her mistake or decide that I am the better one (as in plan A). She confessed to me yesterday that she 'thinks I'm the better one', but that's not strong enough to get her to commit to my conditions.

Which plan should I take? I also have my conditions listed below for you to also comment on.

1. End all contact with the xxx for life. This involves writing a letter (agreed by me and you) stating you do not want to see him again.
2. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
3. Complete transparency - cell phone, email, facebook, passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about you affair<s> � I will ask you take a polygraph test to see if you have had any other affairs. You see, honesty cannot begin at all until the entire truth is out. Even if I find out there have been more affairs, I will not give up on you.
6. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

plan b is two-fold. one part of it is to demonstrate to the WS how life will be with their choice to be adulterous. what i've highlighted in red is the consequences for her decision to behave that way. you are in a great place to show her what is what!

the other half of plan b is all about you. being completely dark from the WS will give you time to start healing from fighting the adultery (and you've been doing that a looooong time). it will also bring you some clarity to decide what to do with your life, with, or without, the WS. it protects your LB$ so that you can reconcile if your WS ends the a and wants to recover the M.

you're doing really well! keep up the good work. you are a very wise BS - you are taking the steps and ACTING on them. that's how you get from one place to the other. well done!

Thanks for the encouragement. I understand about plan B. But for me it's a question of Plan B (separation), or just tell her I'm filing for divorce. If I tell her I'm divorcing, I think she will leave the man very quickly. If not, it's really Plan B anyways because it takes time for a divorce to be finalized.

If we separate via plan B, the worst thing that could happen is she could get pregnant. And that would make things even worse than our affair!

I guess maybe I answered my own question then . . . I should just file for divorce.

For a WW who is financially dependent on her BH filing D can have a huge effect on her, my friend.

*filing* for divorce is a strategy as well. it protects your marital assets from being used to finance the a. it also provides an incentive for the WS to pull their head in. you can always delay the final judgement if you start to head towards recovery, or even end the divorce action should you decide to stay married (which you could do if the WS meets your conditions for recovery and starts working the programme).

you are smart to think of the possibility of an OC (Other Child - child of adultery partner). and you do not want to have to be legally on the hook for any OC. unfortunately, and OC is always a possibility with a WS. :O(

if you feel that filing would benefit your situation, by all means, do it. you can make up your mind re final judgement when you are ready to do so.

Sorry folks, one more question. Should I file the divorce THEN tell her, or vice versa. I do think she will immediately drop the affair if I just tell her. I have two or three times told her I'm thinking about divorce, but otherwise I have always been telling her I want to work on the marriage - even though exposure, etc.)

This is the letter I am going to draft to my wife. (sorry, it's long). Any suggestions?
-----------
xxx, it is unfortunate that it has come to this. I cannot carry on anymore, I am just too weak. Too spent. Too beaten. I am just not strong enough to fight for our marriage anymore.

I have decided to completely divorce you. Please do not try to change my mind. It is my final decision.

I will be hiring a lawyer to help me work through the details of the divorce. He or she will be contacting you once you get back to xxx to work on the details. In xxx there is a 'no fault' type of divorce, which means I do not need your consent or agreement to divorce. So you cannot block it. In fact, you cannot block it anyways since you are the one having the affair; only a betrayed spouse (me) can block a divorce. The other part is that you and [OM] may be subpoena (forced) to appear in the court. It is not against the law anymore to have affairs, so the reason is not to arrest you or xxx. The reason is to show that I am not at fault for the divorce, you and Duncan are at fault for having the affair.

If you decide to continue to have sex, please get some type of IUD. It is a device that will prevent you from getting pregnant. It will not protect you from sexually transmitted diseases, but at least it will allow you to have sex without the possibility of getting pregnant. I will pay for it. I do not want your life ruined by getting pregnant with an uncommitted man. I also do not want you to ruin the life of a newborn child.

I will have all of your stuff in boxes, ready to go when you get home. You will need to find a new place to live. Try to stay with a friend at the dorm, or ask xxx, or even move into xxx's house. I will help you move the boxes to where ever you need, except if it is to xxx's house. Have him help you if that's where you want to stay.

I will not finance you or your lifestyle anymore. It is NOT fair for me to give you money to continue on with your life just so that you can be with some other guy. No it is not. And since the divorce is due to you having the affair, I am not responsible financially for you anymore. You will hear from my lawyer the details, but for now just get ready to find a way to support yourself somehow. Borrow from your family. Get a job. Tell xxx he needs to support you now. I will also cancel your phone contract one week after you arrive; one week should be enough time to get a new phone and contact people to find a place to live.

Speaking of finances, by the time you get this, I will have cancelled all our credit cards together and emptied our joint savings account. I will need you to come with me to the bank to close the joint account. Again, you will need to find some other way to support yourself in xxx. If you are afraid of this, I STRONGLY suggest that you consider staying there in [her home country], even if just for a little while, where you will at least have a place to sleep and food to eat. If you find a way to make it back to xxx, I will hold on to your stuff and it will be waiting in boxes.

I want you to know that I forgive you for everything you have done to me. I do not want you to hate yourself for hurting me. I will be okay, and with my family and friends I will start to heal. However, we should both ask forgiveness from God for making a promise that we did not keep. I am sorry to God for giving up on our marriage. You should be sorry for your betrayal. In the end, I know He will forgive us. And remember that I also forgive you.

Please get the support of your family. Tell them we are divorcing; you cannot hide this from them. Family is forever; you can always find new friends. So get their support please.

Finally, I am going to completely shut down contact with you now. It is just too painful, especially these first few months after a divorce, to contact you. The only contact I will accept from you is for questions relating to our divorce. Contact me by e-mail only; I will not answer any phone calls. If there is anything in your e-mail not related to divorce, I will not read it.

Take care, xxx.

Your ex-husband,
xxx

Wow jah you're too kind.

Are you sure you want yo pay for her IUD? Shouldn't that be her problem? If she gets pregnant by this OM won't that be a consequence of her affair?

Are you sure you want to help her move? She's a big girl sleeping with another man then she can figure that out.

Also I would secure your finances before you send this and speak to a lawyer first. She's in another country at the moment, correct?

The main reason for the IUD is that if she wants to ruin her life with this OM, so be it. I am a pediatrician by profession; I cannot bear her bringing into this world an innocent life and ruining another life from the start.

As for helping her move; its not quite 'helping', it's more like getting her stuff out of the apartment as quick as I can. I don't need reminders and clutter to affect my life.

Oh, and yes, she is in another country.

Thank you SO SO SO MUCH for reading through and commenting; it's hard to think straight when writing letters like this.

Here you go.
IM Training School

...If you decide to continue to have sex, please get some type of IUD. It is a device that will prevent you from getting pregnant. It will not protect you from sexually transmitted diseases, but at least it will allow you to have sex without the possibility of getting pregnant. I will pay for it. I do not want your life ruined by getting pregnant with an uncommitted man. I also do not want you to ruin the life of a newborn child....

OK Jah, I see you are going to remain tight on this. At least change the wording then, to something that holds her more accountable for her actions. "If you continue to engage in sex with POSOM, as a professional who works with the children of such disastrous and selfish events, I urge you to use BC. If you need help funding your BC, I will help you with this cost alone, and solely in support of not bringing a child into this adulterous and selfish situation." None of this need to explain BC to a full grown married woman, or concern for her life being ruined if your stance is that you are actually concerned about the OC.

I see a lot in your letter that leads me to believe that you have the need to protect her, help her, make her feel better. This woman has had 3 affairs in a short 3 year marriage. She does not need you to protect and enable her, she needs you to give her tough love, hoping that she DOES hit rock bottom, because only then does she have the ability to rise from the ashes as a new wife.

Thanks!

I agree.

She's so used to you taking her back and saving her from her own horrible choices. She needs to grow up and deal with her own consequences.

Thank you so much for your advice. I think I might be the biggest enabler in this whole forum, to tell you the truth.

I will reword it then; you are right, my whole original letter is an enabling letter. I guess that my feelings for her makes me think it is a 'I still care about you, come back to me' type of letter, but it's totally just an enabling letter.

Sorry, I have to describe birth control. Truly, I don't know if she understands the types.

At least you see it and are doing something about it now.

My modified letter. Thank you BH and UW for all your advice. I cannot thank you enough. Any more suggestions???

-------------------

xxx, it is unfortunate that it has come to this. I cannot carry on anymore, your hurtful actions is too much for me to bear. I am just not strong enough to fight for our marriage anymore.

I have decided to divorce you. I will be hiring a lawyer to help me work through the details of the divorce. He or she will be contacting you once you get back to work on the details. In xxx there is a 'no fault' type of divorce, which means I do not need your consent or agreement to divorce. So you cannot block it. The other part is that you and xxx may be subpoena (forced) to appear in the court. It is not against the law anymore to have affairs, so the reason is not to arrest you or xxx. The reason is to show that I am not at fault for the divorce, and that it is your wrongdoing.

If you continue to engage in sex with this lowlife loser, as a professional who works with the children of such disastrous and selfish events, I urge you to use birth control such as an IUD. Go look it up online if you need to understand what this is. If you need help funding your birth control, I will help you with this cost ALONE, and ONLY because I do not want you bringing an innocent child into this adulterous and selfish situation.

I will not finance you or your lifestyle anymore. It is NOT fair for me to give you money to continue on with your life just so that you can be with this loser. No it is not. And since the divorce is due to your actions, I am not responsible financially for you anymore. You will hear from my lawyer the details, but for now just get ready to find a way to support yourself somehow. Borrow from your family. Get a job. Tell xxx he needs to support you now.

I will have all of your stuff in boxes when you return. It will not be at our apartment; I will find another place for you to go and pick it up. I will also cancel your phone contract one week after you arrive; one week should be enough time to get a new phone and contact people to find a place to live.

Speaking of finances, by the time you get this, I will have cancelled all our credit cards together and emptied our joint savings account. Again, you will need to find some other way to support yourself. If you are afraid of this, I STRONGLY suggest that you consider staying there in xxx, even if just for a little while, where you will at least have a place to sleep and food to eat.

Tell your parents, cousins, uncles and aunts that we are divorcing. Tell them immediately. If you do not tell them, then I will. They will need to know.

Finally, I am going to completely shut down contact with you now. I have contacted xxx who has agreed to act as an intermediary. What this means is that if you want to send any messages to me, it has to go through her first. If you call me, text me, or e-mail me, I will ignore it completely. You need to give your message to xxx, and she will decide if it should go through to me. Likewise, if I have a message for you, I will contact her, and she will deliver the message to you.

I am still willing to work on our marriage, but you must agree completely with the ALL conditions I have set forth, the first and most important being that you cut off ALL contact with xxx. Otherwise, I have already initiated the process of divorce.

So much better.

I'm sure we will have some more feedback from our fellow MB warriors. So stay tuned.

One more thing. On her family you exposed to them, correct? So they will know what is going on. I wouldn't tell her to tell her family that's her responsiblity. You just need to make sure you've exposed to them so they know the truth.

When do you plan to send this? Also you saw the IM training link I posted, correct? I would let your IM see this so she is totally prepared.

Thanks BH. Yes, I gave my IM a summary of the post you gave me (tried to summarize it more based on my situation), as well as a list of the conditions I require my wife to agree to in order to give our marriage a shot.

I did expose to her family, but of course it was something along the lines of, "She is having an affair with XXX. I am willing to work on our marriage if she stops the affair completely." So okay, it's up to her to let them know that it's now at the point of divorce.

Now that I'm stopping all this enabling non-sense, I'm starting to feel better already.

I'm sure you are. You're taking your life back and not enabling her anymore.

No more drama especially when you're in Plan B. Plan B helps you heal.

Here are some suggestions about things you can delete and modify. I agree that this is a good move and you should just move on from this marriage. Really, you can do better, and three chances is more than someone deserves who's bent on destroying a marriage.

Maybe use these templates and modify it towards a divorce.
Plan B letter samples

BH, I think I forgot to mention this letter is going out in 1-2 days. My IM wants to look at the details of her role first, but she said she probably will do it.

JV, thank you very much for your opinion; parts of it is very good advice, parts are confusion.
- Okay, I'll hire a lawyer before sending this out.
- No, I'm not sponsoring her anymore (she's already permanent resident).
- Regarding the birth control, I am 99% positive she doesn't have a clue about IUD's; just from what I know about her medical knowledge, I'm almost sure. And I'm not sure if it is patrionizing, but in any case, I have heard three people now tell me I shouldn't mention she should use birth control, but sorry, this one point I cannot deviate from.
- That part about telling her to stay in her home country, you say its patrionizing and disrespectful. It might be, but I am also being very realistic here because I don't think she gets it; my wife is not a 'let me think before I act' kind of person. WW rarely are. Anyone else have an opinion?
- You told me to get rid of the 'tell your family' thing. Okay, that's fine I guess. It's not essential anyways.

Please understand JV, I do appreciate your opinion. But I'm getting conflicting advice from people who say, "Your [original] letter is just to caring and enabling" and now you say "Your letter is now too patrionizing and disrespectful". I guess there's has to be a balance in between.

A previous post by [unwritten] mentions that I am too enabling and I need to have some 'tough love' and hope she hits rock bottom. Maybe I overshot and now my letter is disrespectful?

Thanks BH. I'll take a look at that. (you have all the links down!!!)

NeverGuessed calls me the librarian. Wonder why?

Okay, now I'm REALLY confused. Sorry BH, but the link just makes it harder for me to think now.

The letters all have the common elements, all of which I threw out of my letter:

1. Make it a love letter (apologies & how you can/will correct) - I can put some apologies in, but I really don't feel like taking any blame for her actions. I've been in Plan A for so long now.

2. No lovebusters
- My letter is (I think) full of lovebusters. Well, as 'unwritten' said, isn't that tough love?

3. Make "NO CONTACT" clear - okay, I can do that.

4. Make unambiguous the "condition" of return to marital relationships - I have a whole list of conditions for her (the first being no contact). Should I not have given her my conditions???

5. Limit references to OP - I have it all over the place!

6. Plan out the logistics (as best as possible) - Someone just said leave logistics out.


I really, really appreciate everyone's help here, but I'm getting more and more confused. I really need to make sure I don't say the wrong things in this letter!!!

My conditions again:

1. End all contact with the xxx for life. This involves writing a letter (agreed by me and you) stating you do not want to see him again.
2. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
3. Complete transparency - cell phone, email, facebook, passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about you affair<s> � I will ask you take a polygraph test to see if you have had any other affairs. You see, honesty cannot begin at all until the entire truth is out. Even if I find out there have been more affairs, I will not give up on you.
6. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

Well jah the question is do you really want to give her path back to the M then Plan B with a path home.

I think what we're trying to say is file for D to protect yourself and then if your WW was to make radical changes and meets all your conditions then you could consider a reconciliation.

Your WW needs a huge wake up call and you filing and divorcing her still may not wake her up.

You could just file and have your lawyer send the paperwork to her. If she wanted to make radical changes she will.

Hi jah, I know where your confusion comes from. But the thing is, enabling is patronizing. They are the same thing. They are both assuming that someone else isn't capable of managing their own affairs, and then acting in a parental role instead of an equal role. I come from experience in having made these mistakes myself, I think disrespectful judgments through my words and actions towards my own WH were a very harmful part of our relationship. Does that clarify things at all?

In terms of the birth control...suggest birth control, heck, you can even recommend an IUD (though I wouldn't be that specific) but don't tell her to get more information about it or where to go. She is in graduate school, right, she can figure that out!

The staying in her home country part...well, let me try and be more specific. One of the things you would probably want her to address is her "act first and think later" nature, correct? Because that leads her to adultery. So why outline how you think she should handle her life?

It's too bad you took the name 'brainhurts' cause thats what I wish my nick was right now.

Thanks for replying. Okay . . . Yes, I want to give her the path back to the marriage. Thats what I really want, to do MB and work on our marriage. I also want her to have a wake-up call so she can make the radical changes needed. The wake up call in my mind is 1) Filing for divorce 2) Making her support herself (which she can't) so that she is not in this fantasy land of 'I'll keep getting the support of my husband but I can still have my affair.'. If this other guy supports her, fine. If she can get a friend to support her, fine. I doubt either will happen, though. 3) Separation - where the intermediary comes in.

My wife is in her home country; she comes back in 3 days. I am lucky that for the past month there is no possibility of physical contact with the OM; once she gets back I'm going to go paranoid with what she is doing.

My wife also just sent me another e-mail. "Yes, I want to still work on our marriage. I am still leaning towards being with you rather than [OM]. But I cannot write the letter. I will just promise to not see him."

That sounds alot like plan A, and I have come to the conclusion I can't bear to be in plan A anymore. I feel like I was stuck in plan A for a year already.

Hope that clears things up . . . I'm really starting to get a 'brainaneurysm' (maybe my new nick?)

Thanks for your reply. I looked up patronizing to make sure I understood; it says that it is "Treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority." Well, that was of course one of the problems in our marriage. I was always controlling (superiority). I don't want to make things worse by being patronizing.

I looked up enabling too: "Approaches that are intended to help but in fact may perpetuate a problem". Not quite sure if its the same thing as patronizing, but I feel basically it means I do things that make the affair possible. The best way I feel I am enabling is by telling her "I apologize for doing this and that and causing the affair to happen." I am sorry for not being a better husband, but I DO NOT apologize for what she did. Also I'm also enabling by supporting her (working hard) while she has all this free time to go be with that guy. That's why my letter keeps saying, "That's it! No more support!"

I really have to look my whole letter over again, I think. I'm not sure what to think.

jah, I would send your Plan B letter TODAY and go dark in Plan B. You do not have to wait to until you hire a lawyer. The lawyer can contact her with his contact information when you file. Set up your IM today, add it to this letter and get it sent. When you send the letter, be sure and block your wife's emails and phone calls so she can't get through.

Here is a letter that is patterned after the one in the book Surviving an Affair - I changed it up to suit your situation:

My Dear WW,

It is unfortunate that our marriage has come to this but I feel I cannot reconcile after all that has happened. I feel my love for you eroding due to your affairs. Your affairs have been the most painful thing in my life. It is because of this that I cannot continue in this marriage until radical changes are implemented to protect me from another affair. I am not willing to take that chance again. Until I am assured of those changes and you agree to all of my conditions, I will be pursuing a divorce.

I am willing to avoid the mistakes I've made in the past and create a new life for both of us that meet your needs. But I cannot do that until you agree to the conditions necessary to recover our marriage.

Until then, I will avoid seeing you or talking to you. I will also not be able to help you financially. My friend, Sally, has agreed to act as an intermediary for now. Please contact her with any pertinent information. Otherwise I ask that you do not contact me.

I will make arrangements to send your personal property, if you will notify Sally where to send it.

I ask you to respect my decision to separate from you this way. You must know about the suffering I have endured because of your affairs, and I cannot be with you any longer. I still love you but I cannot see you under these conditions.

As soon as you are willing to commit completely to my conditions, I will be willing to discuss our future together.

I loved you when we married and I continue to love you right up to this day. I just cannot be with you or help you unless you seriously commit to these conditions.

With my love,
jah

In the meantime, go read these links:

HOW TO PLAN B CORRECTLY

Intermediary Training School

Thanks ML, that helps alot. I feel like your letter is close to near perfect; I can't believe you modified it for my situation.

I will talk to my MI soon. I'll also read through the links thoroughly. In the meantime, can you explain, "jah, I would send your Plan B letter TODAY and go dark in Plan B."

What is 'go dark'?

Also, you just told me to send the letter immediately. But the very fist thing in the links says, "Do not go into plan B quickly. It takes lots of time and thought to go into plan B"

Why do you want me to send it immediately? (I'm not sure you explained why in your post)

As soon as you have your intermediary lined up you will be in a position to go into Plan B. That advice is for people who don't have the proper preparations in place, for example, they have no IM lined up and might not have the locks changed. Many people rush into Plan B when they are hysterical and they don't have everything in place. In your case, you are lacking the intermediary.

Also, have you removed your wife from credit cards, bank accounts, etc? Does she still have access to your money? If so, I would get that changed asap because you don't want her to plunder your money.

A dark Plan B means that you cut off all contact and don't allow her to get through. When you send the letter she will likely try to contact you so you need to anticipate those attempts in advance and shut that door. For example, you would want to block her email address so she can't send you emails. She will try to call you, so you should have caller ID turned on so you don't answer. If she leaves you voicemails, delete them without listening.

Does your wife have a key to your house? If she does, I would get the locks changed.

jah, lets discuss something else. Where has she met these all these OM? At school? Because in order to recover, the conditions that led to the affairs has to change. If she is meeting these OM at school, then that is the condition that has to change, ie: she has to quit school.

I have a feeling she will immediately agree to your conditions in order to continue getting financial support from you, then go right back into the environment that led to the affairs. Then you are right there again.

That would be a huge mistake obviously. My point is that you should not end your plan B if she immediately agrees to your conditions. Rather, I would make it clear she has to first demonstrate faithful behavior over a period of time - ON HER OWN DIME.

Where and how did she meet all these OM?

Okay, thank you for clarifying. You are a wonderful resource.

So I am waiting for my IM to get back to me. Will be just a day or two, depending on how many questions she has.

I will cancel my creditcards, bank accounts (bank will have to wait until monday), etc. I will block my wifes e-mail, have caller ID, etc. No need to change locks since I have the only two keys right here.

As for where she met these OM . . . both were at parties, student let parties. Not exactly at school. Both affairs were with students from other colleges. So it wasn't at her classes or in her department. I do have it as a condition "No more nights apart or going out without each other." That might take out the possibility of meeting people at parties.

I understand your point completely, that the cycle will just repeat itself. I need to think about making quitting school a condition.

That, in addition to eliminating all opposite sex friendships might take care of the problem.

Okay, it is on there. Actually, I will also add #7.

My conditions again:

1. End all contact with the xxx for life. This involves writing a letter (agreed by me and you) stating you do not want to see him again.
2. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
3. Complete transparency - cell phone, email, facebook, passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about you affair<s> � I will ask you take a polygraph test to see if you have had any other affairs. You see, honesty cannot begin at all until the entire truth is out. Even if I find out there have been more affairs, I will not give up on you.
6. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.
7. We will go through your facebook contacts, and you will explain every male contact to me; only those who are relatives or an approved friend will be allowed to stay on.

So when will you be sending it? She comes back in three days you need to be prepared to stay dark.

Are you prepared for that?

Yes, I am prepared for that. No contact except through the IM. Although I have all the apartment keys, I will put an extra deadbolt to make sure the manager doesn't let her in. Cancel all credit cards. Put all her stuff in boxes in an offsite location. Filter my e-mail/block my phone.

I will be sending the letter out today.

Two quick questions . . .

1) What if as soon as she gets the letter she agrees immediately (through our IM) to all the conditions? (this is a likely possibility) Should I make her wait, or talk to her directly, or let her live a few days unsupported to see what her life in the affair will be like?

2) What if she goes straight from the airport to our apartment front door and just sits there until I let her in or she gets to talk to me face to face?

Just thinking ahead here.

This is what I think she will do. I would let her know that if she demonstrates meaningful changes over a period of time that you will consider reconciliation. She has been living on the largesse of a marriage for 3 years while giving nothing whatsoever in return. She needs to EARN her way back into the marriage. A person who has had 3 affairs in 3 years is not serious about being married. I wouldn't support her again unless you reconconcile or are court ordered.

In the meantime, she needs to get a job and support herself. Don't tell her that, though, just let her figure that out on her own.

If she comes to the house, I would not let her in.

My approach would be to say: eliminate all opposite sex friendships and delete facebook. Facebook is a breeding ground for affairs and that is the last thing she should be using.

I think this is very good advice, but how do I track 'meaningful changes'. Meaningful changes seem to be the conditions I am requiring. While in plan B separation, she can do #1 (I can have a friend check to see she e-mails and posts an actual NC letter on his door, but I'd rather see it for myself), #3 (Isn't the point of plan B to cut contact though? Should I go to snooping again?), #5 (Again, I'll have to go with her). Should we start marriage builders while apart?

What I'm afraid of is she will get frustrated at some point, thinking, "I'm agreeing to the conditions. He is still leaving me kicked out!" That will eventually start driving us apart I think, and then there's no hope left.

1. End all contact with the xxx for life. This involves writing a letter (agreed by me and you) stating you do not want to see him again.
2. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
3. Complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about you affair<s> � I will ask you take a polygraph test to see if you have had any other affairs. You see, honesty cannot begin at all until the entire truth is out.
6. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

Oh, and she already deleted her facebook. Did that after the exposure.

Oh, and anyone with links to no contact letter examples? If she agrees to my conditions, that is the first thing that is going out.

If she agrees to those things, you can start seeing each other again but take your time towards reconciliation. Let her demonstrate some real and meaningful changes. Living apart will give her something to work toward. But if you just let her come back home tomorrow on the basis of the "promise" [of a liar] then you will have lost all your leverage and she will be in a position to kick *YOU* out. Do you realize that?

Since she wants to act like a single person and pursue other men, then she should act like a single person and support herself and get her own place for now. She should not get the benefits of marriage since she has NEVER behaved as a married person.

If she is serious about making amends to you and repairing the damage of her affairs, she will do what it takes.

This way you are protected no matter what and she understands she will not recieve the benefits of a married person unless she acts like a married person.

here


[from SAA, pg 58]

OW, I want you to know that out of respect and love for my wife and children, I have come to realize that I must never see or talk to you again. My relationship with you was a cruel indulgence that BS did not deserve. While I cannot completely repay BS for the pain I caused her, I will do my best to become the husband she has been missing. I care a great deal for my family and I would not want to do anything to risk their happiness. I will not make any further contact with you and I do not want you to make any contact with me. Please respect my desire to end our relationship.

Sincerely, XXXXX

Here are some more, but Mel's example is perfect.
No Contact Letter Samples

Also, please listen to these clips and tell me what you think. Especially where Dr. Harley talks about how both spouses have to be on board with MB for it to work.

Radio clip on Plan B
Segment #2

Absolutely. Delete FaceBook. She has a phone, yes? She can stay in contact with her friends and family the old-fashioned way. NO ONE needs FaceBook. I've done nicely without it.

Tell us how she did it. Deleting Facebook isn't just a matter of hitting a delete key - it involves a window of up to two weeks to truly delete an account. Be clear: Facebook does NOT want anyone to really 'delete' an account, so they make you jump some hoops to do so.

Did she delete her account correctly, or just suspend it? A suspended account can be re-activated immediately. How did she 'delete' her account?

Okay everyone, it's now DONE. I sent her the letter; no more contact except through the IM. I've done the credit card/bank account stuffs. I'm doing the e-mail filter/phone block now. Before she gets back from her country in 3-4 days, I am going to pack up all her stuffs and get it to a storage place. I am going to get the extra deadbolt lock for the apartment just in case. And I am going to finally just get this whole affair out of my mind, even if only for a few days. I am not going to even THINK about it. I don't need it hanging heavy on my head.

Thank you for the no contact letter and examples. I won't worry about drafting one until she makes a decision.

She probably suspended her facebook account. I really don't care at this point until we move into working on our marriage.

I'll go and listen to those radioclips. I'm going to read through all these posts that have been given to me.

I want to thank EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU for supporting me and helping me get through to this far. Its quite amazing; strangers helping strangers in their greatest time of need. If I don't come back on this forum for a few days or more, it's because I'm going to just take some time for myself, now that the plan B in fully underway.

jah, I implore you - do NOT leave this site right now! You are at an extremely vulnerable place. You need all the support you can get right now. Stay with us so we can help to navigate you through Plan B.

I agree jah. Stay around, because the first few days/weeks of Plan B can be very painful, my friend.

Wow, such quick replies! Okay, okay. I'll stick around. But maybe I'll check in just once a day or so. I've lost 8 pounds in the past week to all this stress. Feels dizzy when I stand. I think I need to get out and take a walk, get some fresh air.

I got a card in the mail that there's a package for me at the post-office that I can pick up monday. I think it's the 'Surviving and Affair' book that I bought. What timing, huh? I heard it's a good read.

Excellent read.

What did you think of the clips?

Thanks for the clips. The main points I get is that nobody has ever failed on the MB program, and that you cannot start the program unless both partners agree to go through the program.

Also talked about exposure; I know how hard that can be, but that's how it needs to be. They are right.

The program can also work just as effectively if both are not on board. That's the design of Plan B. Personal recovery. It may not feel like it right now (and believe me, I know it doesn't), but you're in a win win situation. You will recover one way or the other. That's why everyone has been begging you to not abandon the board. You have a lot of folks here that truly care, myself included. I don't think you realize just how lucky you are to have landed here. This board is a Godsend in this time of need.

BTW, are you the spawn of Gandhi? I swear you would have to be to be making these efforts after what you've had to endure in only three years of marriage.

I couldn't and wouldn't do it. NO WAY!

You have my respect.

Exactly, my friend.

Dr. Harley says in 35+ years of saving marriages that the MB program works 100% of the time when both spouses are on board.

Exposure. He is very clear on this. You did well.

TW - no, I'm no Gandi. Really, I don't think I'm that special. I have been reading other people's posts; wayward spouses doing incest, prostitution, having multiple kids with multiple OW or OM outside of marriage, abuse, alcoholism . . . I don't think my situation is nearly as bad as others, and many of them manage to keep working on their marriage.

Call me an unrealistic idealist, an enabler, a religious zealot . . . even a gullible, stubborn idiot. But even through all this pain that I am enduring, all of which I never did deserve, I stand by my value that marriage is forever, that I made a promise to God and to my wife that I will keep trying through good times and bad. That's the only reason I am not giving up. If she ever decides she wants a divorce, I'll agree to it as there's nothing left to fight for. Until then, I guess I'm just a sucker for abuse.

Call the radio show and ask Dr Harley.
The question is your wife willing to work on your marriage and use Marriage builder concepts?
3 affairs in 3 years? It sounds like she can't commit.
Ask Dr Harley.
As for your vows before God, she BROKE the marriage contract.
Personally I would. It take her back unless she was wiling to comit to following the MB program.

Oh I would also encourage you to speak with your religious leaders. Ask them if your religion obligates you to be married to a serial adulteress.

jah, entering Plan B and STAYING in it is difficult. Do keep posting. You need us here to hold you accountable, I have found owning up to my Plan B cracks and knowing the 2X4's I'd get made me hesitate when I was wanting to contact WH.

Going through withdrawal from our WS's is HARD. There will be low points where you will need to know someone on the other end of the net understands how you feel, and is still telling you not to break Plan B. Cause they know you'll feel worse if you do.

But it gets better... and better... and better!

Plan B(etter)?

Thanks Caracal, I really appreciate your support. I think for now it's not too hard because my BS is still in her home country. In two days she will be back here in the city; I don't want to even start thinking about where she will stay when she gets back.

2x4's. You mean you would get cracked in the head?

Looking at your bio, have you been in plan B for 6 months now???!?

As I anticipate her return, quick question. Am I allowed to go snooping on her when she is here? (track her phone, check phone numbers that she calls, etc.) Its going to drive me crazy.

No jah in Plan B you're completely dark. You do not snoop on her. You ask all your support system to not even talk about her to you. Completely dark. You spend the time healing and taking care of yourself with self care.

What things have you always wanted to do for yourself? Start putting a "bucket list" together. A Plan B"ucket" list.

The girls in Plan B have a "what color are your nails today" moto. Maybe we can have the guys chime in and come up with a "?" how is your today. How about "how are those muscles coming along?"

What do you suggest?

In Plan B, where she stays in not your problem. You will have to quit being the knight in shining armour (KISA) for your WW. I have a feeling you have always "rescued" her when she needs it. She relies on it. In Plan B, this is not for you to do anymore. WW needs to understand, if divorced (and Plan B is a taste of life without you) you will not rescue her in any way, shape or form.

Jah, my best advice is to start thinking about how you are going to block your WW if she tries to play the damsel in distress. If she does sit outside your apartment, how will you handle this? If she shows up at your work?

Have you changed your phone number? Your email addy? Blocking will not work. Every time your WW attempts to contact you, it sets you back in your recovery. This is coming from someone who has learned the hard way. No more. Don't do it to yourself.

Not literally! Its an emoticon, you'll know it when you get one... the feeling of being accountable and embarassed really works!

I'm an aussie, so the dates are written different... I had to check but I have been in Plan B for 10 months! I no longer count the minutes, days, weeks etc. As Plan B goes on, my life without WH has evolved.

As BH says, NO! She gets a hotel room on credit card... rings an unknown number... Snooping on her will drive your crazy.

Entering Plan B is for your recovery, regardless of whether WW joins you for marital recovery or not. It took me a long time to accept this, as I really believed WH would of course join me for the journey when he pulled his head from his behind. I have learned that I have no control over his obsession with his own rectal examination, and focussing on what the wayward is doing whilst they are wayward is crazy making. As I have reminded myself yesterday with a crack in Plan B from solicitors, any information about the wayward just triggers us into thinking about the wayward, when it is faaar better to be thinking about ourselves and what we want to do with our lives.

You know you deserve a wife committed to marriage right? Plan B is about letting your WW choose if she is that woman or not. Because you'll survive regardless, and life WILL be great.

Thanks for the advice, caracal.

"I don't want to even start thinking about where she will stay when she gets back."

Oh no, I'm not going to find her a place to stay. What I mean to say is that it will drive me crazy thinking of if she will go and stay with the OM. I know I gotta get this out of my head, but it's hard.

"I have been in Plan B for 10 months!"

10 months? How do you do it? Do you have a timeline? (as in a date you will decide to just give up and divorce?) You won't wait forever, will you?

I still don't know if divorce can be a part of plan B, but actually I was going to start the process tomorrow, since it takes a few months to finalize and I'll give her at least that much time to get out of the fog. After that, it's over.

Have you changed your phone number? Your email addy?

Email addy is tied to work; I'm actually finished with my position in about 10 days, so I'll get a new one afterwards. PHone number is a little more tricky; all my patients have my phone number, as well as on the roladex of different hospital/clinics. It will be very disruptive to change that one. I'll wait for now; hopefully my IM will be helpful.

At the very least block her email and phone numbers.

Yes. I will do that for sure.

Speaking of starting the process of divorce, is there a link or advice how to choose a lawyer? I'm sure there's a better way than looking in the phone book and choosing the one with the biggest ad.

Have you got any friends, male or otherwise, who lost everything in a divorce? Ask them who their ex's lawyer was. Other than that, I'm not sure. The vets will be able to do better for you.

Good luck.

I called and spoke with several attorneys and asked them who was their worst opponent. 3 out of 5 gave me the same name, and it is her that I choose. (that was rather unique, but my atty is an absolute killer, strategically tremendously good! I also googled her and there was a court transcript where a defendant wanted to change attorneys and the judge said 'why would you do that? You have the best attorney in XXX', so I knew I had the right person)

You likely can also go to your local court website and find the cases from the attorneys you are looking at. You can see what kind of cases they mostly do and have done, you can see what motions they have filed and whether they are usually denied or confirmed. You can see if they have been replaced often in divorce cases.

I mean it may take some time to find a good one, but the information is all there.

Also ask divorce friends or other attorneys for recommendations.

Okay, I have been second guessing myself about this plan B, with crazy thoughts in my head popping up like its just making it easier for her to sleep with this OM, this is going to put her more and more in the fog, it's like I'm giving up on my wife who I still care so much about, etc.

I got out of plan A because I found myself crying more, not less. Because I found myself having LB arguments with my wife in my head. Because I started thinking, "I don't think she's worth it." But now in plan B I am crying much, much more than before, feeling like I want to do something, to win her back, to go back to Plan A.

I took a deep breath, and realized that to be strong I needed to start a list for myself, a list which shows exactly why I am doing plan B. I think I need this for my sanity.

Why I'm doing plan B:
1) I have been an enabler for too long. I need my wife to hit rock bottom if I hope to have a better, more committed wife to be back with me.
2) The only way my wife will see what it is like to be without me is to cut her out of my life completely.
3) This will give me time to heal and recover, because I have to take care of myself first before I can take care of anyone else.
4) My wife has abused me and shown no respect for our marriage vows. I do not deserve someone like her.

Actually, I have to stop there at number 4. In my younger days (early 20's), I found with girlfriends that I broke up with that what made the breakup easier was to start listing every single fault they had. Once I had this list, it was fairly easy to let them go.

I don't know if I should do this with my wife (it would be so easy to make a list, I'm sure). It might make me hate her so much, if she ever accepts my conditions it will make it more difficult to work on our marriage.

Do you think I should do this? Make a 'hate list'? Anyone else have some things for me to add to my "Why I'm doing plan B" list? I feel the more I can add the easier it will be to deal with the lows.

Doc:

If I were your buddy and able to visit with you, Id grab you by the shoulders and look you into your eyes and Id shake the crap out of you hoping something inside your head will come loose and you'll start to see things that all of us see.

You wife has reduced you to a whimpering, sissy-man.

I have not heard one iota of anything resembling a wife interested in saving this marriage. In fact, I hear clearly shes taking this opportunity to be with her AP.

Without kids this become super easy in my opinion. I would have file for divorce like 15 minutes after the 2nd affair let alone the 3rd. Id cut off any support and change the locks on our marriage home. And, Id start dating because Im sure in the near future you can find a woman who wont cheat on you AND/OR you will have used the materials on this site to create a real relationship with open dialog and mutual respect.

No hate lists. No pining for the disaster that is your wife. Just read your threads and for crying out loud, man, enough of the woe is me stuff.

See it differently, now OM has to meet all all her needs, and trashy people can't. Instead of having her eat from 2 walls, she is now solely dependent on him. The sooner they shack up, the sooner it will collapse.

jah, it is normal to be very sad when you start plan b. you are suffering the beginnings of withdrawal from your M and what you thought you had together (despite everything). when i was in plan b, i spent half my time pissed off, feeling i could take on the world because i was working the plan. the other half i spent sobbing my heart out in agony. it is vital you stay dark. any contact you have w/WW, no matter how desired, will only make you end up feeling worse - been there, done that!

you are a smart and thoughtful man. you must be an excellent pediatrician! you can do this. put all thoughts of WW out of your head and focus on you right now. she may come around, she may not. but you need to not consider what she may do at this point.

what are you doing to make yourself feel good today? (maybe you *should* get a pedicure?) :O)

Jah, what you have to challange yourself with when you have thoughts of leaving PB is...

What is the alternative?

Your WW has NO intention of stopping her A. She cannot even commit to #1 on your list of requirements, which is NO CONTACT with her AP. She is telling you she is interested in staying in the M, but in the same breath refusing to end her A or have no contact with her AP, regardless of its impact on you.

And in 3 years, this is not the first time she has shown such selfish disrespect. It is not the second time. It is the THIRD time. That you know of.

She has no intention to stop her selfish adulterous behavior and serial cheating. And she has no reason too, if you leave your PB. She will know she can do WHATEVER SHE WANTS and you will be waiting for her when she decides to come home. (Until she leaves again for the next A).

The alternative to Plan B is a lifetime of living with a serial cheater. Whatever agony you are feeling right now, x every year you are married for every new A you must experience. Living as a doormat for a woman who has no respect for you.

I can tell you do NOT want that kind of life for yourself.

You asked awhile back about 'tough love' vs. being controlling/disrespectful judgments. The difference is that you are not going to tell her what SHE needs to do. You are telling her what YOU will allow in YOUR LIFE. You are giving her YOUR boundaries. "I refuse to be in an M where there are affairs." She can choose to live in any manner she wants to, multiple A's, OC's, you have no control over that. But YOU can choose to not live with those things. See the difference?

Here are the scenarios that can happen here: 1) Leave PB. Continue in status quo. With no reason to, WW continues her A. Maybe recommits for awhile until she meets someone else and starts another one. 5 yrs later you are in the same place you are today, only with more OM's to think about. 2) Stay in PB. WW continues her A. Or she says she wants to recommit but never comes out of the fog or agrees to your EP's. You divorce her. You are happier as a single man who isn't suffering as the BS of a WW, or happy in a relationship with a woman who is able to commit to a REAL marriage. 3) Stay in PB. WW decides that the reality of single life is not for her, and commits to recovery. YOU run the show, set the boundaries, and she commits to them. Eventually, she sees the error in her ways and becomes the wife you deserve. You recover and have a happy M.

Which option will you choose?

jah, I assure you that you will feel MUCH BETTER in a couple of weeks. You will feel better than you have in years. You have gone through holy hell with this bad marriage from the start. You cannot change your wife and you can't control her. All you can do is stop making yourself available to be used and abused.

She either gets on board and makes the necessary radical changes or you get divorced. You win either way.

I HAVE COME TO A REVELATION TODAY:

Thank you for all your advice, but MikeStillSmiling, your advice hit home the hardest!!!

I am leaving plan B.

Correct me if I am wrong, but most betrayed spouses are trapped because they are partially or fully dependent on the wayward spouse. Or there's kids to complicate things.

Well, my situation is NOT this. I am a physician, I am responsible, I am a good husband that has always been loyal, and I have my family here. EVERYTHING in our marriage I paid for. And yet, I am the betrayed spouse.

My cheating wife is a grad student, not finished with her education, no job, no family support, no savings. NOTHING. She is selfish, materialistic, unloving and a serial cheater.

Plan B is for those who are willing to wait for their wayward spouse to come to their senses and come out of the 'fog'. Am I correct???

I AM NO LONGER WILLING TO WAIT FOR MY WIFE TO GET OUT OF THE FOG.

Why should I be the one in pain waiting for her to come to her senses???

I am coming out of plan B and going to my own plan. I'll call it Plan "Jah".

I am going to tell my wife exactly what I think of her. I am going to tell her exactly what a mistake she did for leaving me. I am going to tell her I am going to divorce her right here and now, and that is my final decision, and forget about all those conditions I gave her to work on the marriage. I TAKE THEM BACK. I am not going to wait for her anymore.

And if she leaves with this OM??? FINE. I'm going to just divorce and I'm going to be happy with that. I say this without any remorse anymore.

And if she begs me to reconsider, that she will follow my original conditions, that she wants me back??? FORGET ABOUT IT. I am going to tell her she is still on her own. I am not going to support her one bit. I am going to tell her that for a minimum of SIX MONTHS, I am going to keep her cut off with no support, and SHE has to prove to ME that she can get her life back in order. That she is deserving of me. This is going to be my 'tough love'.

THIS IS GOING TO BE MY NEW PLAN. It is not following the 'marriage builders' advice of plan A or plan B anymore. I don't think my situation fits with either. This is my 'jah' plan. Anybody have any thoughts???

***EDIT***

Sounds like a good plan to me! You are fully within your rights to decide to move on. I honestly think it is the wisest choice because that is where you were headed anyway. Your wife is only married for one reason: to get some financial support. She would have left you anyway, when someone new came along who would support her.

WHAT? You completely contradicted your self, jah! Which is it, you are done or you aren't done? I already gave you a plan where she had to prove herself and you started off by saying you weren't going to do it and then you write you ARE?

Which is it??

Okay, let me know if this makes sense.

Basically, I am not done with this marriage. I am just done waiting for her to come out of her fog. I am done with plan B. I rather divorce than wait for her.

So, I am going to tell her I am divorcing her, and I am going to give her a piece of my mind on why I am divorcing her. And if she leaves, fine. If she comes to her senses and wants to come back, I'm going to keep her cut off financially and give her six months to prove she is ready to be a wife again (which does include going threw MB)

THAT is the plan I gave you, though. The only difference is that you are abandoning Plan B for some reason. So all you are doing is abandoning Plan B but doing EXACTLY what I suggested.

Are you abandoning Plan B because you can't bear to be without her? Because that is what it looks like. This is all about your fear of cutting off contact, isn't it?

Okay, so sorry about all of this. Let me try and say this with a more level head.

I am not willing to go through the pain or time commitment of plan B. I don't think my 'serial cheating' wife deserves my patience in waiting for her to 'come out of the fog'. I rather just get divorced now or get started with marriage rebuilding.

If she cannot commit to MB immediately, I am ready for divorce immediately too. I really am. In this forum, every single person has told me to leave her. Some even said to just run away as fast as I can. But I held out hope, going through plan A, including exposure, and then starting plan B.

But I feel like I don't care anymore about waiting for her to come out of her fog in plan B. Being in pain while she has her fun. I rather just make an ultimatum and have her decide.

I know you will probably say if I make an ultimatum, then I will certainly lose, right? Well, right before sending out the plan B letter and going dark, this is the gist of what she e-mailed me: "I am kinda leaning more towards you, but I still don't know yet. But I can't agree to your conditions because I don't want to hurt the feelings of [OM] While I am sorting out my confusion, can you please promise not to date anyone else? I need time to think for myself."

That sounds like crazy talk, if you ask me. She is so much in the fog that she's gone crazy.

So basically, I feel either I do plan B, waste my time and emotion to wait and see if she does or does not come to her senses.

Or I make an ultimatum and see if she comes to her senses right now. If she doesn't, I'll divorce and I am okay with that. I'm ready to move on.

Does that make sense at all? Do you think I'm just going through the initial shock of plan B initiation?

You will win if you make an ultimatum. You need to file for divorce and cut her off now, my friend. She has been in 3 affairs and is not even remotely interested in recovering your marriage.

I would send her a letter NOW letting her know it is over. Let her know before she flies back to your town.

And she is not in a fog. Cheating is her way of life. This is a way of life for her. And it will become a way of life for you too if you don't get out.

The MB program can help you if your marriage doesn't survive the affair. Please stay with us. We can help you heal either way.

This is the comparison I want to make in my ultimatum. If she is so far in the fog that she can't see her mistake, then I'm going to just divorce.

Let me tell you WHO I AM:
I am a physician, someone people respect and admire because I save people's lives and care for their children.
I am a provider, someone who will make an excellent father someday and who has the income to support a family.
I am a loyal, caring husband who has dedicated his life to his wife, who made it a point that his happiness came from her happiness, and has never hit, betrayed, or done ANYTHING bad to his wife.
I am smart, funny, creative, a musician, a magician, and someone who makes people smile.

THIS IS WHO I AM. THIS IS WHO YOU ARE GIVING UP.

And what about xxx? Who is he? I really don't care. You think you are 'in love' with him, that he could be 'the one'. Right? So your judgement is clouded, all you see is the good in him. Well, this is what I KNOW about him:

Let me tell you who xxx is:
He is a lowlife loser, who sees a drunk married woman and takes advantage of them just to have sex with them.
He is an adulterer, someone who does not care about marriage and does not care if he ruins marriages.
He is a meteorologist. Who cares? You think his job makes ANY DIFFERENCE to ANYBODY? He tells people about the weather. Thanks alot.
You do NOT know what kind of father he is going to be. And do you think he is a provider? He's the same age as me and still stuck in graduate school!!! What kind of future is that?

Yep, jah, she is doing nothing more than using you to finance her despicable way of life and you are allowing it.

Where in this email does she really indicate any concern for YOUR feelings? Nowhere. That little line about "leaning towards you" is nothing more than bait to try and keep your interest enough to continue to finance her selfish indulgences. She is using you and playing you like a violin. And why not? She's been able to do it for three years with absolutely NO repercussions from you so what motivation does she have to stop?

Since she's gone for another couple of days I would pack everything she owns and have it ready for when she returns.

All you've done is talk. Time for a little action. Make it real!

Absolutely your right. If that is your FINAL DECISION, go for it. File NOW. She'll have to deal with the consequences of her actions.

WHOOPS, HANG ON. You just changed your terms. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? SIX MONTHS?? She needs to end this crap RIGHT NOW. TODAY. YESTERDAY. She needs to leave OM NOW.

Your Plan is Plan Marriage Loss. Do you not understand this???

"I am kinda leaning more towards you, but I still don't know yet. But I can't agree to your conditions because I don't want to hurt the feelings of [OM] While I am sorting out my confusion, can you please promise not to date anyone else? I need time to think for myself."


Dear wife, unfortunately, this email does not motivate me to forgive you. It does the exact opposite. It has helped me make the final decision to file for divorce. I gave you the opportunity to earn my forgiveness and even told you under what conditions I could forgive. Since you are not willing to meet those conditions I am not willing to continue in this marriage because those conditions are the only way our marriage can recover from the damage you have caused. No husband should have to tolerate multiple adulteries. I am not willing to do that.

In the meantime, I have taken your name off of our credit cards and bank accounts. I won't be paying you any more money and won't be sharing my home with you again. Please let me know where I should send your belongings and I will make sure they get to you.

I wish you all the best in life, jah

ML, what you said kinda interests me. You said "You will win if you make an ultimatum. You need to file for divorce and cut her off now, my friend. She has been in 3 affairs and is not even remotely interested in recovering your marriage."

So you think an ultimatum is the way to go? That I would win? Yes, I am going to file for divorce now. But I really do think she is interested in recovering our marriage, it's just that I'm an enabler. Plus, I feel that if I can just get her to commit to the program, it will work.

You also said, "And she is not in a fog. Cheating is her way of life. This is a way of life for her. And it will become a way of life for you too if you don't get out."

It might be her way of life, but somehow . . . she comes from a broken family and lived with a physically and emotionally abusive dad, one who had four children from three marriages. This does NOT condone or make excuses for what my wife did, but still . . .

Then, by all means don't bother with Plan B. Go straight to divorce. I don't want you to go through the 'pain' of getting your marriage back.

You need a certain amount of steely resolve and a thick skin to put your marriage back together. You, sir, DO NOT HAVE THAT. Our efforts to help you save your marriage are wasted on you. Why didn't you tell us that you aren't that interested in doing the work to repair your marriage??

Divorce her and move on.

In addition to this, and to what I suggested above as well, I would pull a page out of the Mortarman Action Manual (actual advice to estrela) and after you have all her belongings packed take them to a storage unit prepaid for one month, and then give her the note that Mel wrote along with the key to the storage unit. Change the locks on your doors when you need a break from packing.

Sorry MB, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not giving her six months to get her act together. I'd be crazy to do that.

What I mean is I'm going to give her an ultimatum. IF she decides to leave this OM right now, as of today, then I am not going to just take her back like nothing happened, have her move back to the apartment, and work on our marriage.

I want to see changes. I want to see her hit rock bottom. I am going to keep her unsupported, financially and otherwise, EVEN IF she agrees to end it with OM. She will have to find a new place to live, get a job to earn her money, and show me that she can get her life in order. And if after six months she can show me this, THEN I'll work on the marriage too.

Does that make sense?

I think you misunderstood also TW. I already DID pack all her stuff, and put it in a storage unit. I changed the locks and even put an extra deadbolt on the door in case the manager tries to let her in the apartment. All the credit cards and bank accounts are cancelled. I have taken action.

Ohhhhh, I obviously missed this. Is she aware of this?

You are in denial. She is only interested in taking your money while she hunts for men. She is making a fool of you. You have given her the chance to change and she has turned down your offer. Anyone who can read her email and then say "I think she is really interested in recovering our marriage" is not a friend with reality.


But still........what? Lots of people come from broken, abusive homes. Has nothing to do with becoming a serial cheater. Her childhood is about as relevant as the price of tea in China.

I am pretty much done talking this to death. I have my own marriage and my own career and this is all a big waste of time. There are hundreds of posts giving you good guidance and still you have taken no action. Just talk. Talking a problem to death does not solve problems. If you want to be wishy washy and double minded, do it on someone else's time. I don't have time for that. I wish you the best.

I agree you would be crazy to do that. But you suggested EXACTLY THAT. Here is what you just said a couple of hours ago:

Okay ML, if you feel like I've wasted your time, I'm sorry for that. But I do feel like I took action. I don't think I'm just talk. But for what it's worth, thanks anyway for whatever help you've given me, and I also wish you the best.

Oh, okay. Got it. You gave her an ultimatum TODAY, as of TODAY. Got it. So, what did she say, TODAY?

Maybe I just need to leave this forum for a day or so and calm down. I'm not even putting my thoughts down correctly. I didn't mean to be contradicting. This is what I meant:

I'm not giving her six months to leave the OM. I'd be crazy to do that. She has to leave him NOW.

I am going to tell her that for a minimum of SIX MONTHS, I am going to keep her cut off with no financial support or otherwise, and SHE has to prove to ME that she can get her life back in order before we start working on our marriage.

------
You know what? This all started 20 or so posts ago (all in the past hour - please read everything since then) with me saying that plan B is difficult, and that I needed to make a list to remind myself why I need to stick to plan B.

Then MikeStillSmiling sends me a post telling me to forget about the plan and just divorce. Somehow, that struck a chord in me to just give up on plan B.

Now I feel like I've been rambling on, probably a little incoherently, and losing the support of various people on this site. I don't mean to waste anybody's time and effort, but if you really think I'm a lost cause then maybe I should just go on with the rest alone?

Why do you have to give up Plan B if you are going to Plan D?

The only reason you would do that is if you want to maintain some contact but are hopeful filing D paperwork will scare your WS straight, as far as I can see. That won't work!

And some of us stay in Plan B even after D is complete.

Okay, let's be clear: so, are you saying she has to leave OM, and that she is on her own for the next six months?

What goal do you hope to achieve by doing this? Are you planning to spend a half year apart to repair your marriage?

Have you lost your mind??? Where did you get the idea that separating is how you repair a marriage???

You do not have a clear understanding of Plan B. It is not designed to win your WS back to the marriage although sometimes cutting off contact (i.e. stop meeting the WS's ENs) will knock them down off the fence.

Plan B's main purpose is to pull you out of the wayward's drama so that you can begin to find some peace and protect your health. Plan B is great from someone even if they are going into Plan D.

BTW, the way that I read MSS's post is to stop being so obsessed/analyzing what is going on w/your WW and your M when he sees that there is nothing to save. Plan B will actually help you will that.

Okay, I took a nap, took a deep breath . . . let me summarize what just happened in the last 5 hours and 40+ posts.

After going through plan A, including full exposure and giving my wife a list of conditions, I still wasn't getting anywhere. I decided that my situation is past that point and so I went for plan B.

So far in plan B, I have set up an IM, changed the locks to the apartment, put all my wife's stuff in boxes and put them at an offsite location, canceled all the credit cards, and wrote a letter to my wife saying that until she agrees to my conditions, I cannot work on our marriage, and I cannot be in contact anymore.

Then in the past 5 hours, I guess I freaked out and the thought came to my mind to basically give her an ultimatum instead of waiting out plan B. This is where the 40+ posts came in the past five hours. I did not do anything yet, just have an exhaustive discussion (argument?) with lots of people here that I know is trying to help me.

Then I took a nap.

And now I'm a little more even headed, and still at plan B. Okay, I get it now that plan B is not necessarily to get my wife back, but to get peace of mind away from the drama. So anyways, I'm going to try and keep going with this plan B, even though it's been only two days and I'm freaking out! But I know I can do this.

In the meantime, today in the mail I got the rest of the books I ordered: Love Busters and His Needs, Her Needs. I already have Surviving and Affair a few days ago, which I started and will be the first one I read through. I'm going to read through all three while in plan B, since I'm sure it will help me, even if this marriage does not work out. And I'll use this forum from time to time for support to keep going.

Thanks again everyone for your help.

Well that's how we learn don't we? Glad you're back.

Have you read this? What Are Plan A and Plan B?

Also read in SAA about Plan B and it will answer alot of your questions.

Thanks for the support, BH. Tonight, a friend of my wife's called me to say my wife asked to stay at her apartment (since I am cutting my wife off financially and cut off from our apartment). I told this friend the situation, and kindly asked that they do not contact me or update me about ANYTHING on my wife.

Then I thought about it, and told them to contact me for only ONE thing; if my wife told them she was pregnant. The reason I threw this one in is because as far as I know, if my wife gets pregnant by this OM, I might be responsible as the husband. Is that right?

Did I handle the situation correctly? In plan B, in addition to setting up an IM, should I contact all my friends telling them not to update me on anything about my wife?

Do these friends know of the affair? Then yes you did the correct thing in telling them not to tell you anything about your WW. If they do not know about her affair I would let them know and then tell them to not tell you anything.

If she ends up pregnant I would demand a DNA test. You will not be responsible if you're not the father. Just make sure she doesn't put your name on the birth certificate. I would not worry about this for now, because for now you're in Plan B.

Yes, these friends know about the affair. Everyone knows since the exposure. They just don't know about not updating me, about the idea of plan B.

Can you check my sig? Not sure if I wrote that right.

Looks good.

Phew jah, I was glad to come across this post after catching up on your thread.

Your emotions are all over the show, and thats okay, its part of the rollercoaster. This makes it all the more important that you follow the advice here and follow the plans. You can't trust that your emotions will make good logical decisions in your best interests.

Keep taking action to follow the plans, well done.

Well done so far, Jah. Stick to plan B. It's healing powers are amazing! Even if you decide (while still in plan B) to move to plan D, DO NOT BREAK PLAN B! You'll go right back on the roller coaster.

As a side note, is your WW a Filipina who went to high school in South Florida? If so, have the mods send me an email. I might have some back-story for you.

Yep, make sure you do this. However, as good as Dr H's books and plans are, there are often a lot of questions about the praticality of implementing them that are not answered. Read threads of Plan B'ers here, and post questions on your thread. Us Plan B'ers are sure to offer support and answers.

It took me a long time to actually understand Plan B was not about having the wayward run back to me full of remorse. Plan B is all about the betrayed. If the wayward commits to marital recovery, all well and good if this is what the betrayed wants. However, either way, Plan B is about the betrayed surviving an affair. And from my reading on here and IRL sitches, healing is slow if it ever comes at all when the BS still has contact with the WS.

My 2 cents... this is not right. In Plan B, ALL contact comes through the IM or lawyer. A good many friends / family initially struggle with Plan B. They want to tell the BS everything about the wayward; they are often trying to heal themselves from feeling betrayed by the WS's actions. You have sent a mixed message. Better to tell them, if WW needs to communicate anything important to you, she can do so through IM.

Your IM is your filter. He / she will decide if the message is important. Let them know, a pregnancy is important (although I guess they can figure this out for themselves).

Besides, I suspect if your WW was pregnant, she would be running to your for financial support. If the only way of reaching you was through the IM, I bet she would do it.

As BH says, you would need DNA evidence anyway.

So put these thoughts out of your head. Don't try to anticipate things that are only hypotheticals right now.

It's common not to get results immediately, so you might be just a little bit impatient. Dr. Harley encourages men to Plan A longer if they can calm down and stay rational and work the plan, because it maximizes their chances.

It's best if you don't make snap decisions. Come here and discuss first and get feedback and also let this group help you stay calm.

"I am kinda leaning more towards you, but I still don't know yet. But I can't agree to your conditions because I don't want to hurt the feelings of [OM] While I am sorting out my confusion, can you please promise not to date anyone else? I need time to think for myself."


[/quote]


{Shakes head}
Even under the BEST of conditions R is HARD!

Grow a pair my man. This is a slap in your face and a kick in the crotch. Leaning toward YOU, Please don�t date anyone else?
Do you not have any self respect?

I can tell you she has zero respect for you. Even if she does �come back� until you show her that you are not going to be stomped on like an ant on the ground, you will never own her heart.

20YH - Grow a pair my man. This is a slap in your face and a kick in the crotch. Leaning toward YOU, Please don�t date anyone else?

markos - It's common not to get results immediately, so you might be just a little bit impatient. Dr. Harley encourages men to Plan A longer if they can calm down and stay rational and work the plan, because it maximizes their chances.

I guess to answer you both; when your wife gets that delusional, staying in plan A is no longer an option. Thus plan B.

I did 'grow a pair' by kicking her out of the house, packing all her stuff and putting it in storage, and cutting her off financially completely, aka plan B. She does not have a job, or savings, or family here in the U.S., so I think that is a big deal.

Day 3 of plan B - I got a wonderful 8 hours of sleep last night; first time in a long time.

AJose - "is your WW a Filipina who went to high school in South Florida?"

What??? Thanks for the support, but um . . . nope. Sorry!

You not supporting her financially is a consequence of her affair and her continue actions of abuse toward you.

You finally are holding her accountable. Good job and stick with it.

It's going to be very tough when she returns in 2 days. Then you'll be truly tested on how you can stay dark and not crack and enable her again.

Thanks for the support, BH. It is now 12 hours until she arrives back here. No pickup at the airport, my doors are locked, credit cards cancelled, phone/email blocked, all her stuff is out of the apartment. You are right BH, this is when we'll see how I really handle it.

I have been still getting a couple of our friends messaging me their support and asking me where our situation is at. I updated them, tell them the basics of plan B, and then asked them politely not to update me on anything about my wife from this point on.

Almost all of them agree with what I am doing and promise to keep me in the dark (which is encouraging for me), except one friend who said if I really wanted to work on the marriage, I would keep track in secret. I reiterated to her, I'm not doing this, and please don't update me because this is also for my sanity, and she finally agreed.

I took your advice, Caracal, not to worry about "What if's" like if she got pregnant. I just told them to keep me completely in the dark.

I'll let you all know how it goes in the next day or two. Thanks again everyone for all your support.

No. You don't want to know ANYTHING. You aren't responsible as the husband. You wouldn't be the father.

Completely dark Plan B. NO contact. That's where you need to be.

Jah, I'm at work so can't access my links. Has your IM read the IM training thread? It's under notable posts, be sure they read it... They may need support in their role.

Okay. You describe your wife as a drunk married woman.
I am a member of AlAnon. A worldwide organization for family and friends of alcoholics. Dr Harley encourages spouses of alcoholics to join AlAnon.
If your wife is an alcoholic then the MB program will not work because of her addictions and disease of alcoholism.
Are you an alcoholic?

Can I make a suggestion here? I really don't want to upset all the veterans that have been helping me out so much (THANK YOU!) or tell them that the way they are doing things might be wrong, but I really think this point is important.

I am not a blogger, or forum writer, or internet type of guy. I still don't know what a 'moderator' is. But here is how I started: I googled 'marriage affair'. Went straight to this site. I went and read almost everything on the main website. Then I clicked the 'discussion forum' link and thought maybe it wouldn't hurt to check some stuffs there too. The first place I went to was "Surviving an affair". I read a few posts and then posted my own story. And then advice started coming, and just like other 'newbies', usually the 'exposure' step with links are the first advice given . . .

I really think the first thing that should be posted for someone just starting out with their story is that they should go to "Notable Posts --> For Newly Betrayed Spouses". And then they should browse through the rest of the notable posts, and then be directed to come back.

There are TONS of information in there under "Notable Posts", and I never even knew was there! THATS where everyone should be directed first, I think. Or at least they should know about it. I've been posting for about a week now, and alot of times I ask a question and someone posts a direct link to something in "Notable Posts", which helps me out. But I never knew what what else was in there.

Again, I guess I'm an idiot for going not going there first, but I'm sure there might be more than a few people like me that don't know about it either. I'm on page 19 and I didn't realize information was there.

Just my suggestion. I don't want to say much more because I don't want to upset any vets here.

Thank you SO MUCH Caracal for pointing it our for me!!! I'm going there now to educate myself.

**edit**

Thanks for your concern HDW. No, I'm not an alcoholic, and neither is she. I'm not sure how to prove it without sounding like "I'm in denial." I have a beer or two maybe once a month, probably less. No hards, no wine.

My wife? Maybe a little more, like 2-3 beers once a month or so. She drinks wine too maybe 2-3 drinks per month.

Both of us never had a DUI, passed out, had a hangover, vomited from drinking, etc. In fact, after one drink, my wife usually gets a stomach ache.

The reason I said that was because I think the first time she met this OM at a party, my wife had a couple drinks, more than usual. She was still coherent, though. I'd like to think that this affair was a one night stand, but no, it carried on after that.

In any case, to answer your question, no we are not alcoholics. You can ask me more questions though if you want me to prove it.

Okay . . . first break in my plan B.

My wife is currently flying back here from her home country. Probably at a layover. I got a phone call from an unknown number; answered it, heard my wife's voice, and hung up immediately. Not even a 'hello'. She called a second time, and I didn't even pick up this time.

I felt very nervous about this; what if she is in trouble? What if she is stuck in immigration? But I tried to put the ideas out of my mind.

My IM then called me after a few minutes; she just got a call from my wife saying she was ready to accept all my conditions.

My heart jumped for a few seconds. The unknown number called again, and this time I picked up. My wife was in tears, saying she missed me, not to let her go, that she wants me back, etc. I interrupted her and said, "Before you go on, are you willing follow all my conditions?" She paused, and that was enough for me. I repeated my question, and she started saying about how she needed to be separated to see if she really loved this OM before she came back to me, blah, blah, blah.

I basically summarized what I told her in my plan B letter, then hung up on her.

What do you guys think? Am I handling it right? It's pretty confusing for me if she tells my IM she agrees, then tells me she doesn't. Any advice for me???

yes: no contact! she can't just tell IM she agrees to your conditions. waywards lie, as you found out. she has to have a plan and have some action speaking for her before she can tell IM she is ready. and...your IM should have told her to call back when she was REALLY ready to agree to your conditions. neither one should have called you. a call from the airport is piffle.

I agree that she has to have a plan and have some actions speaking for her before she can tell IM that she is ready. That makes total sense, but for my IM, what kind of action would be enough? My plan is my conditions (I may add more later). Should I require some of the conditions to be carried out before I talk to my wife? It's pretty tricky; which conditions can my wife do without contacting me?

I need to work with my IM closer to tell her what constitutes as genuine 'agreeing on my conditions' by my wife. Can someone give me some advice?

My conditions again:

1. End all contact with the xxx for life. This involves writing a letter (agreed by me and you) stating you do not want to see him again.
2. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
3. Complete transparency - cell phone, email, facebook, passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about you affair<s> � I will ask you take a polygraph test
6. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

I think WW wants a lift from the airport...

And is panicing as she doesn't know where she will go.

She is testing you. Do not allow the cracks. She has the Plan B letter. That is the map, it has the directions for WW, showing her what she needs to do to join you in the light. Otherwise, you will remain dark to her.

Jah, look at how contact with her has made you feel. You were sounding calmer. Now, the coaster has gained speed again. You probably feel so hopeful right now... prepare for the dip to come as a result.

Any crack in Plan B causes a seesaw of emotions.

a repentant WW would SHOW by at least starting with booking a poly, deleting any way of having opposite sex friendships (fb, or whatever), and drafting the NC letter. oh, and making a list of all accounts and passwords. that's ACTION. your IM needs clarity from you. has he/she read the IM training thread? but anyway, the airport call should have been a red flag for your IM without any input from you.

And Letty is right... your IM needs to be tougher than this.

Remember, waywards are all great with saying what others want to hear, that is how they get to have their cake and eat it too.

MB is about actions, not words. Your WW will have to walk the walk if she wants you back in her life working towards recovery.

I have been in Plan B for a while. Initially my conditions for recovery and Plan B to end were pretty brief.

Now, with time and perspective, my list is longer and the conditions more specific. The benefits of Plan B... I won't take crumbs from anyone.

Here is a link for you so you can start considering what conditions your WW would have to meet... although SMB never entered Plan B (from memory) she had a long time of separation and a false recovery so developed a very specific list. Which served her (and her FWH) well.
sexymamabear's requirements

Thanks Caracal and Letty. No, I'm not trying to board that rollercoaster. I did hang up on my wife twice without a second thought. I actually thought it was funny, Caracal - "I think she is just looking for a ride from the airport."

What I need to do is work with my IM closer and give more specific details for her. I think if my IM asked my wife, "What have you done to prove you are ready for the conditions?", my wife will just stand there dumbfounded. Or who is to know that my wife is telling the truth if she says to my IM, like "I did break it off with him! I can send the no-contact letter! I'll give you my passwords!" Still might be all words.

Should I give my IM a list of conditions TO PROVE my wife is ready for my conditions? (Yeah, I'm getting a headache saying that). Maybe like this, I'll tell my IM to contact me, only if my wife:
1) Has finished writing a no contact letter (I'll be sure to go over it after to be sure it fits the MB principles).
2) Give her the passwords for her e-mails, facebook, etc.
3) Make the appointment for a polygraph test (I even have the number for my IM: xxx)

I don't know. Any other ideas to add? I'm sure other people ran into this problem before. I really am trying to fill in my plan B cracks.

Thanks again for all your advice.

Oh, and sorry Caracal, your link didn't work.

Edit out your IM's phone number.

This is what I was worried about with your WW. She's not even back yet and the games have started. You should really change your number.

Wow, I didn't know you can edit.

That's not my IM's number, its the number for a polygraph center.

I will change my phone number; like I said, it's tricky because that's the number all my patients have to call me at night for concerns about their kids. But I'll do it.

But I still think the main problem is working with my IM closer so she can know if my wife is serious about my conditions.

I'm not a vet jah, but there is no way I am risking direct contact with my WH if he ever decided to try to eat some more cake. And WH has tried in feeble efforts. With your WW being a serial cheater who is finanically dependant on you, I suspect her efforts to cake eat will be big. I could be wrong though.

Part of my conditions (and like I said, my list has gotten veeery long) before I would even consider speaking with WH are:
1. Write a NC letter. Send this to IM who would decide if it was foggy or respectful (my IM has MB posters support with this if she needs it). Then, and only then, would IM forward to me for approval. I would then post the letter to OW registered mail. In his handwriting.

2. Specific to my sitch, prove he is back in his home country. And prepared to surrender his passport to me.

3. Contact the Harleys. At his expense. If he is serious, he'll pay for me to contact the Harley's with background info, and then he will contact separately. The Harley's can then advise me if he sounds serious.

4. If he "passes" this step, I would ask that he start posting on MB. MB'ers are great at lifting a wayward's fog. I would wait for MB'ers to approve direct contact with WH before I would risk setting my recovery back.

Now, these steps are BEFORE WH has contact with me. Prior to this, he would hear zip. These steps are needed for me to even begin to think about recovery with him.

Great jah, you are taking ACTION to putty up Plan B cracks. Contact attempts hamper your healing. Take my word on this. It is better to know she CAN'T contact you. This way, you stop jumping every time the phone rings.

Because early in Plan B... you want her to try to contact you.

I've been there and got the postcard.

Oops, hope it works this time.

You will need to scroll down to Jean36's post. I can't find the original at the moment. But the whole thread is a great MB education...

sexymamabear's thread

Also jah to help with keeping your Plan B dark can you go stay with a friend for a couple of days? She's going to come by the apartment and beg you to let her in.

Since you've changed the locks she can't get in? Can she get a key from the landlord?

On another note a lot of the notable posts have broken links.

BH is right.

A dark Plan B is also about avoiding the contact attempts, so you don't have the emotional see-saw start.

I am not confident you will resist WW's attempts to get in the apartment.

So prevent yourself being exposed to it. Tell the landlord not to give her a key as she is having an A. And go to a mate's place for a few days. The company will likely do you good anyways. Just make sure it is a male friend...

Caracal - Thanks for the link; holy smokes, that's alot of conditions! I might incorporate some into my conditions later (my conditions are never static), but for now I think the ones I have are the main ones.

BH - Haven't changed the locks because I have the only 2 keys. But I put an extra deadbolt in case the landlord tries to let her in. I can stay at the hospital overnight for a few days; it's uncomfortable but should be fine.

In talking with my IM, I told her that it's not good enough for my wife to just agree to my conditions verbally. It probably is just words. My wife will need to show some action, including the following:
1) Has finished writing a no contact letter (I'll be sure to go over it after to be sure it fits the MB principles).
2) Give my IM the passwords for her e-mails, facebook, etc.
3) Make the appointment for a polygraph test (I'll give my IM the phone number to the polygraph tester that I want to use)

I've started to get calls from my wife's friends telling me that my wife asked to stay with them. I told them that it's totally up to them what they want to do, they have my permission to kick her out or let her in, but that they cannot contact me or let me know what is happening with my wife.

I'm trying to fill in all these cracks! I'll let you know if more come up, as I'm sure they will.

First off

I love to hear a wayward is desperate.

Secondly... I would be saying to your wife's friends "I have offered WW the conditions to recover our marriage as I would like her to become an honest person and wife. Sadly, so far she is refusing as she chooses to continue her affair. It is up to you if you wish to support her in her adultery and dishonesty."

Be honest about the situation. So your WW's friends are fully informed and can choose if they want to accomodate her or not.

Personally, I would not accomodate a WW if I was in a relationship with someone. Never would I expose my H to a wayward if I had the knowledge of this. Give her friends this choice.

Its great you are telling them you don't want to hear zip after this!!! Stick with it. If they ring you back with an "update", let them know that information of your WW only hurts you and you need to focus on yourself so you can heal.

Agree with Car.

Will she come look for you at the hospital? If so, maybe you should stay at a hotel for a few days?

See jah, your WW's a big girl and is figuring out things on her own.

If she was remotely serious at all she'd be showing you ACTIONS.

Keep the bar high because you deserve it.

Thanks for the advice; yes, I did explain the situation to them. I'm having these long 20 minute conversations with them explaining the whole situation and why I'm doing what I'm doing and that my wife has an IM to contact me. So far, after telling them he story, they apologize because they are deciding not to let my wife in their place. AT THAT POINT, I say that they have my permission to do what they want, but just don't contact me or tell me what's going on.

Anyways, I'm going to get some sleep now, as it's 12 AM. My wife arrives in 8 hours. I work tomorrow, so gotta get some zzz's. Wish me luck, and thanks again for the all your advice and support everyone!

She doesn't know where the sleeping call room is, so no, she cannot find me overnight.

But I gotta work; no way around that. So she could come to the hospital at anytime and find me I guess. If she starts doing that, do I have to find a new job??? That's something that takes pretty long to do.

And sorry, there no way to spontaneously use vacation time to get away from work for a week or so. Patient's don't get sick only from 8 AM - 5 PM.

And Jah... Is your female IM a relative? I am just wanting to ensure your boundaries are high, so you don't become wayward yourself. You are vulnerable right now, so you need to keep those boundaries high.

So she could come to the hospital at anytime and find me I guess. If she starts doing that, do I have to find a new job???

No. Let her hang herself with her actions. If she shows up, have her escorted out by security. If she shows up again, repeat. The third time, have your lawyer initiate a TRO based on her stalking actions.

By that time, the hospital administration will be involved, and would basically be your unnamed ally ("...disruption to critical operations...", "...nuisance to staff and patients...")

Hey Caracal, thanks for the concern about me becoming wayward. I couldn't imagine being a wayward myself, but I guess when a person says, "That can never happen to me." That's also when they are especially vulnerable.

To answer your question, my IM is a dear friend of my wife and I in her late 60's. So even though not a relative, there's no chance of me being a wayward with her. I chose her because she's quite impartial, and she has already told me (on her own) that my wife needs to learn and that she is going to show some 'tough love' and refuse my wife if she asks to stay with her.

Wow, that seems pretty extreme. Does everyone agree that would be necessary? If you think so, I'll do it.

Actually, in three days it won't be an issue anymore. As luck would have it, my last day at the hospital is at the end of June; after that, I start a new position elsewhere, and my WW has no clue where that is.

If I wanted advice on my kid's sore throat or cough, Id come to you.

On matters pertaining to adultery, its recovery, and successful marriages thereafter, why do you question the advice given here? All of the advice given adheres to policies and techniques advocated by the owner of the site who has written many books about the 1000s of couples he's counseled. (And if someone says something outside the scope of MB, its quickly rebutted and even removed in some cases.)

You already know who is the goods when it comes advice as they've appeared on your thread lots of times. These same people will lose their patience with you if you drag your feet, question their advice, and choose NOT to do something that is central to success. Can I suggest you do what they say no matter how unsavory it may be? Come back here and vent your anger, pain, and stress. As well as to get best practices.

Alright Mike, you made your point. I do feel like I am following advice, but I agree by questioning the advice first I will start turning off vets here who just want to help me.

I'll just act first (based on advice) and ask questions later. I do want to understand the reasoning behind the advice, but that can come much, much later. If someone tells me to do something I'll just do it from now on.

So, if my wife comes in the hospital and finds me, I will firmly state, "I told you there is to be NO CONTACT with me. Talk to the IM if you have anything to say." The second she starts to argue (which she will), I'll call security.

Sounds good?

no. walk away and have her escorted out. say nothing to her. be strong jah!

All clearly spelled out in the book Surviving An Affair. The advice here gets you going while your book is being shipped.

The best posters have given you the reasoning for the advice when they gave it but you seem to want to question it. Don't.

Here's why you need to be tough, Jah. Your WW is used to being pampered and getting her way. She's going to push and push to try and get you to back down. You need to be FIRM with her. Seriously.

And this will challenge you because you are used to giving her every little thing she wants, including time to decide if she wants you? HELL NO. You're in the driver's seat now and if she has the gall to show up at your work to try and charm you back, she needs to be escorted out.

She has no boundaries. She's like an undisciplined pet...one that has behaved very badly. Time for major tough love.

I hate to be cynical but I'm with the 'get yourself a divorce NOW' crowd. This lady is going to have to change the way she does EVERYTHING in order to become the wife you deserve. Calling you from the airport? It's because she KNOWS how to get to you so you have to do everything in your power to eliminate that possibility.

Okay, that's the plan. No talking, no explaining. I'll just call security to escort her out.

By the way, you're doing a great job so far.
It's going to intensify if/when she begs to come back.

If it were me, I'd get the divorce and date her afterwards. No way would I continue to stay married to this entitled, serial cheat. She needs a MAJOR wake up call and if her love for you is strong and focused, she will be willing to do whatever it takes to win you back ON YOUR TERMS.

I should have said 'possibly' date her afterwards. When this all shakes out, you very well might not want her anymore.

Yes, I get it about tough love. I really do want her to hit absolute rock bottom; that is the only way I'll take her back. Its the only way to get the wife I deserve. But I do want to keep trying; if we divorce, I want to be able to say I did everything I could, then move on.

Hi jah,

***EDIT***
Jah, in terms of implemting a Plan B, you need to determine three things: 1) if you still love your wife, and are able to tolerate her behaviour based on this love, 2) if you really need a Plan B to protect Yourself while entertaining a hope for her committment to your marriage, and 3) to learn how to disengage from an uncomfortable and unsupportive and painful relationship and go on to a better life for you. Baed on this I think before you willy nilly decide between a Plan B or your own plan, you need to get back do the drawing board, do some serious evaluation, and determine what and who (specifially) you want in your life for the rest of your life! Jah, I have been married to a most wonderful woman for 40+ years - I honstly could not imagine dealing with your ww for even one year.

***EDIT***
Tom

If this is seeing the 'forest in the trees', then:
1) I still love my wife, but I will not tolerate this behavior.
2) I do need a plan B to protect myself while having a hope for her commitment
3) I do need to disengage from this unsupportive, painful relationship.

I want to point something out here to anyone who's reading.

Somewhere in this whole thread, I mentioned "I think I'm the biggest enabler in this whole place." I still think that's true.

I understand that I've allowed myself to be a "doormat" for too long, and I need to learn how to stop doing that. Whether I end up with my wife or with someone else, I need to learn because otherwise I'll just end up with the same results.

At the same time, I DON'T blame myself for my wife's behavior. Nothing that I did was bad enough to make her have an affair.

I am trying my best to learn not to be an enabler anymore. That is not because of my wife but for MYSELF.

Must be one of those 2x4's finally got through.

That is why it is important to stick around. Whatever recovery plan you end up in, marital or personal, MB and the wonderful people on this site with be of great value during this process.

Please read these threads by an excellent poster of ours, Doormat_No_More
4 months after dday
1 year after dday
2 years later

I suspect she is ready to come home, but you should not have answered that phone call. She's still addicted. You shouldn't be asking her what she plans to do: she should be telling YOU what she plans to do to return to the marriage.

Ask her to outline her plan.

**edit**

moderators note: if you have an issue with a moderator, email them directly. Don't disrupt this forum anymore!

oh, jah, you are so NOT! you're doing great. stick to the tough love. it's going to be harder now that she's back in the country, but you can do this. you have done so much already. keep up the good work.

Thank you for all the support Letty and maritalbliss.

BH, I tried to read through those links you gave me about 'doormatnomore'; after almost 3 hours I was only halfway through the first link! It's like a long novel. I cheated and skipped to read the second and third post. I know the guy posted himself as 'doormatNoMore" but I didn't see too much doormat type of behavior in there. He seemed anything but a doormat; although maybe it's because he was already in recovery. But it was a very interesting read to see all the ups and down that recovery will take; and it's good to see a happy ending.

His first thread when he first got here was lost in the 2009 crash.

He was a doormat when he first got here and then learned and lived the MB concepts and it was like he was a new man. He was originally called Barnboy and then changed to doormat no more.

He is very educated in MB principles. I learned so much from his posts.

Well, today might be my 4th day of plan B, but I feel like it's my first, because this morning my wife arrived from her home country and is now back in the city.

Walking around the hospital today, I kept expecting to see her waiting for me in the lobby or hallway (she used to wait for me at these places before), and I kept getting my phone ready to call security if needed; but she never appeared.

I do know that she is here though; I tried to check online the joint bank account that we had together (which I already emptied awhile ago), and I was locked out. I called the bank to ask why, and they said someone had tried to access it online 6 times and failed. So that's her, trying to log on to our joint account even though I changed the password. Somehow, it made me feel pretty happy to hear about that, though.

Now I'm here at home, it's quiet, I'm reading through posts, and I'm trying my hardest NOT to think about where she could be tonight. I know it will take time for these thoughts to subside, but it's hard, you know? Plan B is tough!

In between, I keep cleaning the apartment. I did pack all her stuff and put it in storage, but there are still alot of 'other' stuff that isn't really my wife's; we have a whole wall here of pictures, books, trinkets, souvenirs, figurines, etc that we collected together over the years; as I'm cleaning I'm gonna just put them in a box and store them somewhere. Do you think I should put them away in my apartment or put it at the storage facility for my wife to find? I had thought of throwing them away, but if I'm still in plan B, I figure just store them 'out of sight, out of mind'.

There is one good thing about this, though. My wife has always been a 'hoarder', and I am a 'throw everything away and live simple' kinda guy. Well, now I have 'the pass' to throw all this built up clutter and junk and clean up the apartment. It's starting to look pretty good.

Some Plan Bers have taken down wedding pictures and momentos and put them in storage. Whatever will help you heal, is what you should do.

Plan B can be like a major withdrawal for an addict. Self care is very important.

So what do you have planned to pamper yourself?

When you say 'addict', you mean my wife, right? Or do you mean I have the addiction?

I did decide when my wife was still in her home country to go and buy a stand-up paddleboard for myself; always wanted to try it. Hehe. I'll let you know how it goes.

I mean the separation for the betrayed spouse from their wayward spouse can be like an addiction for them to be separated.

Meaning the withdrawal for you can be very tough so take care of you. KWIM?

Definitely let us know about the paddleboard.

IKWYM

Hello everyone,
Okay, I am on day 5 of plan B. So far, no running into my wife. I have been taking the precautions; sleeping overnight at a site away from my apartment (in case sit outside the front door waiting for me to get home), getting ready to call security (if she tries to find me at the hospital), changing e-mails, blocking her phone number.

I already changed the locks at home, packed her stuff at an outside facility, and cancelled credit cards/bank accounts (I am the sole provider).

There was only one 'crack', where my wife called my IM and told her she was ready to accept my conditions. When I talked to my wife, she was in tears, saying she missed me, not to let her go, that she wants me back, etc. I interrupted her and said, "Before you go on, are you willing follow all my conditions?" She paused and wavered, and so I hung up on her. I followed up with my IM to have more strict rules in place, where I require action on my wife's part rather than just accepting my conditions before I am contacted again. I'm not sure if my wife is getting close to coming back, or just wanting to 'cake eat'. Probably its both, I think.

And now, I have talked with a divorce lawyer. I didn't actually file, but going though my case, my lawyer said it will be pretty fast and easy since there is no kids, I'm the only provider, and I was the betrayed spouse.

I want to have my IM send my wife a message regarding more details of the divorce. Of course, I want this message to have full effect. This is what I came up with:

--------
[WW],
[BH] would like me to pass this message on to you. He has already contacted a lawyer regarding a divorce. Because there are no kids involved, the paperwork should be relatively fast. All he needs to do is document your combined assets, their worth, and then show verification. Once that is done, he will be ready to sign the divorce papers.

He wants you to know that he WILL NOT wait for you to make a decision, and once the paperwork is done he will sign for divorce. He also DOES NOT need your signature or appoval for the divorce to go through. He WILL NOT contact you before he signs the divorce paperwork. Once the divorce is final, you will be receiving a notice from his lawyer that it is done.

He also wants you to know that until the divorce is final, he is still willing to take you back and work on the marriage. But you must accept all his conditions.

Please DO NOT contact [BH] in any way. Any messages you have, including if you want to accept the conditions, must come through me before I pass them on to him.

Sincerely,
[IM]

P.S. Please verify that you got this message.

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The reason my letter specifies that I will not contact her about the divorce, or wait for her, or get her permission for the divorce is because the last conversation with my wife (before plan B went into effect), I told my wife I wasn't sure if I needed her signature. She also asked me to wait until she made her decision and to not sign before telling her. I didn't answer yes or no to her request. Basically, all this talk by her is probably wanting to still be in control and 'cake eating'.

I basically want to show her that I am the one in control here. She doesn't have control on how long I wait to divorce, she will have no notice when I sign the paperwork, she cannot force me to stop.

Any comments are welcome; including changes you might make to my letter. Thank you.

Are you ready to divorce now? You haven't filed yet, correct? Why let her know before? Why not just have your lawyer send her the paperwork?

I do like the letter but would add some sort of condition about her proving her faithfulness to you.

Read this. The Art of War

I would add my sentence above that she must demonstrate faithful behavior over a period of time in order for you to drop the divorce. A typical ploy of waywards is to agree to your conditions long enough to get you to drop the divorce and then go back to pursuit of the affair. You don't have to be in that position if you put it this way.

And good job on staying dark!

I am not ready for divorce now, however, right now I feel like if after a few months go by and there is no progress, I'm ready to call it quits. I have gone back through my thread from the beginning, and I noted that some people posted that filing for divorce can sometimes tip a WS to accept conditions. Other people posted that I should just file now, and since it takes awhile I can just take it back later if I change my mind. That is where my reasoning comes from.

I will read [the art of war] and get back to you.

You win either way by filing for divorce. If she doesn't change, you will be divorced, and in the meantime, you will have legal protection. If she does actually demonstrate meaningful change, you can just drop the suit and you won't lose anything.

I understand. I think filing and signing the paper are two different things.
With that being said I would send the letter with Melody's addition.

Thanks ML. I'm glad to see that you are still following my thread; the last time it was like you gave up on me. I'm much calmer now, and I've stopped trying to be questioning and resistant to advice and just follow through with the vets.

I think it's good that I do add that line; actually, even if my wife accepted my conditions and seemed genuinely taking action to work on the marriage & stop the affair, I did not plan on taking her back into the apartment or supporting her financially right away. At that point, I would come out of plan B, maintain contact with her, work on meeting each other's EN, and at least start the marriagebuilders program. But I would want to see her continue to be faithful and responsible for a time period before just taking her back. Maybe a month or two? That's what I was thinking.

I agree with that plan. One of my main concerns with her is that she views you as her personal ATM while she cats around looking for men. If that is the case, you will find out soon enough. And even if you are not ready for divorce now - no one is ever really ready for divorce - you will NEED to get a divorce if she doesn't shape up by the time the divorce is final. THAT will be in your best interest.

And the reason I got frustrated was not because of questions, but because you kept waffling on the plan and going back and forth. I am glad to see you are sticking to the plan now.

Okay, I read it through; very interesting stuff. I liked MrW's interpretation. I felt like having my own translation here:

Although you are capable, display incapability.
"Sure you are capable of defending yourself with angry outbursts. But you need to contain it."

When committed to employing your forces, feign inactivity.
"Don't let them catch you snooping, until you are ready with all the evidence."

When your objective is nearby, make it appear distant; when distant, create the illusion of being nearby.
"Right now you are nearly full of LB. Right now meeting EN is probably distant. You need reverse this behavior."

Display profits to entice them.
"Make yourself desirable to your WS. Exercise, dress well, stand straight, look confident"

Create disorder in their forces and take them.
"Expose, expose, EXPOSE!"

If they are substantial, prepare for them.
"Getting over an affair is tougher than anything else you will encounter. Make sure you have a plan."

If they are strong, avoid them.
"A WS will often appear strong by pointing out every fault you have. Make note of it, but avoid blaming yourself for the affair."

If they are angry, perturb them.
"If exposing the OM or OW has made them mad as hell, you hit your target. Keep looking for more targets and don't stop shooting."

Be deferential to foster their arrogance.
"Be calm in the face of your WS emotional outbursts."

If they are rested, force them to exert themselves.
"Make life difficult for the OM or OW. You will outlast them."

If they are united, cause them to be separated.
"Um, duh! Isn't that the goal?"

Attack where they are unprepared.
"Plan B - cut your WS off completely when your WS least expects it."

Go forth where they will not expect it.
"Plan A - show you care even when your WS feels they don't deserve it"

These are the ways military strategists are victorious. They cannot be spoken of in advance.
"Don't let your WS EVER find out about MB forum! Until you are in recovery, at least."

jah,

When I my wife finally admitted she was having an affair (it was obvious anyway) I gave her the choice of ending it or leaving the house. She unequivocally chose to leave.

I do not believe in divorce, but I also don't believe in plan doormat. The betrayed spouse must get legal protection. So I filed for a legal separation and shared with my wife that I was open to reconciliation if she agreed to my terms.

She responded by filing for divorce, but being the first to file is advantageous.

You will in time decide if you want to divorce or reconcile. Time is needed to make that decision. In the meantime, a legal separation might be another attractive option. You would need to consult with an attorney to make sure you are fully protected under this status.

Thanks JT3OU. That is definitely good advice. I didn't know there was such as thing as 'legal separation'. Could I get in legal trouble for locking my wife out of the apartment and cutting her out of our finances? I don't know, I better find out.

Yes, I do not plan on being a 'doormat' any longer. I am trying my best to learn.

Jah, you are better off filing for divorce because if your wife doesn't get on board, you will be divorced. In your case, that will be the definition of success. Just stick with your plan as it is. It is not illegal in any state in the US to change your locks.

Personally, I would try to get a restraining order if she tries to bug you at home or at work, as well as file for a divorce. Remember, you can always stop the divorce from going through if she decides to get on board, but it's true that it's advantageous to be the one to file. Above all, protect yourself from any more harm. I think most of us would not consider reconciling with a serial cheater. She has herself, not you, in mind, and someone needs to think about YOU.

BTW, you've done a good job of taking action (packing up her stuff, getting an IM, etc.). I know it's an emotional time, just keep following the advice of the vets here...look how many posts ML has here, she's well versed.

Sorry, just have to chime in here as an attorney! In Florida, it is illegal. It is called a constructive eviction, and if it prevents someone in a home where they have a legal right (if it is their residence, in Florida, if they have even slept there the night before), you can get in trouble for it. That's of course assuming that the person will file a case against you for wrongful eviction, but if they do, there are (if I remember correctly!) treble damages. So...for some it might be worth pursuing, and it is always good to talk with a lawyer in your area about what your state's laws are. Another form of constructive eviction is turning off utilities.

I would like to see someone actually get arrested for merely changing the locks on their own front door. I have been here for 11 years and no one has EVER been in "legal trouble" for changing the locks on their doors. People can and do do this every day in America. We have had attorneys insist their clients change the locks so the WS does not get in.

If folks worried about the potential "legal risk" of everything they do, no one could ever do anything. We don't live in a culture where one has to consult a lawyer for simple every day actions.

The typical attorney response to each and every move in defense of the assault of an affair is to do nothing. Not even exposure. That is because their goal is not to protect the BS but to facilitate an amicable divorce and make their own job as easy as possible.

Let me put this another way. The greater risk is having a WS who barges into the house unannounced, ruining one's Plan B. That is what typically happens when one doesn't change the locks.

I can point to numerous such incidents over the years. I cannot point to ONE SINGLE case where a BS was charged with a crime for changing the locks on the doors. Not one. Even when the WS called the police to force his way back in, the police persuaded the WS to leave.

So no, the biggest risk here is not legal trouble, but the risk of the WS barging in the house.

I've been around MB forever too.
I agree.

Here is a tip.
Read the local crime news online.
Pick out one or two articles concerning near-by break-ins, or what-have-you.
Link those articles to a friend(s) or family member(s) in an email, expressing your concerns over your safety.
Write how you wonder if you should make your home more secure.
"These recent events make me want to be more careful and safe in my own home"
There. You've documented how your "new locks" are for your peace of mind.

THANK YOU everyone for your advice.

Actually, when I had the locks changed a few days ago, I didn't want to tell the locksmith that it's because I'm kicking my wife out. So when he asked why do I need to changed the locks, I told him that it's because about a year ago, we lost one of the keys to the apartment (which is true), and I wanted to change the lock for peace of mind.

Of course, we lost the key at my parent's house when on one of our vacations, so I wasn't REALLY worried, but that probably makes it legal for what I did.

For anyone who is thinking about doing it, thought, it's pretty easy and fast. It costs about 60 dollars, the locksmith comes over in less than an hour. He changed both my doorknob and the deadbolt (same key).

Yesterday my wife called 6 times using an unknown number. As soon as I heard her voice I hung up. I didn't even pick up the other 5 times.

I know people said to change my phone number, but as I said before, it will be difficult because that's the number tied to all my patients and the various clinics in the state. I can't think of an easy way to notify all my patients to call my new number for their late night emergencies with their kids. Having a voice message on my old phone saying, "Call this new number for medical questions." just defeats the purpose; my wife will hear the message. I'm asking around with colleagues for suggestions; any that you have would be helpful too.

The only way I can think of is this: calling every patient (1000+!) and telling them about my new number. Like I said, not easy.

In Ohio, when you file for divorce the local court immediately issues a Mutual Restraining Order (MRO) which prohibits you from changing locks, withdrawing money from accounts, turning off utilities, etc.

My wife repeatedly violated the MRO with no consequences; the Police were called and they didn't care.

So technically you cant evict someone without following the proper procedures; However, there may be no consequences.

You NEED to contact an attorney for direction and not ask a forum for what is legal; I would file for divorce and you can always cancel later. Divorce takes several months anyway.

See an attorney and protect your assets before she does. Do you want your bank account frozen? Do you want your business accounts scrutinized? Stop thinking about your crazy wife and the door knobs and think about your profession and how to protect your assets.

If she is willing to leave the affair then you can do the MB plan

Thanks HDW and everyone else for looking out for me.

I really do appreciate everyone's advice here. I don't expect to get actual legal advice here when people don't know my state, my hospital policy, etc. Thank you JV for your advice as an attorney; it's good to hear other opinions.

I do have a lawyer to help me, but the last time I asked him advice during the exposure (see my other post: Exposure Emergency!
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2638012#Post2638012)
he recommended to stop any more exposure because if I continued it could be harassment. Luckily I targeted the important ones first: his professors, supervisors, workmates, students, friends in the state, family, and of course, mommy and daddy! The rest of the facebook contacts were out of state and probably barely acquaintances.

So basically, it's a fine line here between getting legal advice with lawyers who will probably tell me to do NOTHING, the law which is the law, and the vets here who are telling me to keep going.

This is what I plan to do . . . I am NOT going to ask my lawyer for what I am doing; they will just say to stop regardless if it's the law or not. I am 99% sure my wife will not take any legal action against me. If she does, however, I have made up my mind that plan B is immediately out and I will divorce as quickly as possible. Am I making any sense?

By the way, it's amazing how plan B makes it easier to think clearer!

I hope this resonates with others whom are following along.

No you arent making any sense.
I think you should file for divorce. That is a natural consequence of your wifes affairs.
She is a serial cheater. 3 affairs?
You have no children together.
You're wife wont like Plan B. She will want money and if she files first then you could have your accounts frozen. You are a doctor.
Then her attorney will get the court to ORDER you to pay for her attorney.

Family court is different than dealing with regular legal issues. Per my first atty: It all comes down to what your argument to the judge would be.

All you have to say is that you were worried about the WS barging in at any time, it made you feel unsafe.

Make sure that you have packed up all the WS's personal belongings and have given it to them so that they would have no reason to come in. So again, that would be your argument to the judge: They have no reason to come in, they had all their personal belongings. If they had a legitimate reason to come in, I would have had someone there to make sure they didn't rifle through my things and I would have allowed it.

No family court judge is going to throw the book at someone for not following proper eviction procedures if you do this. That is ridiculous.

Per my first atty again: Technically you are not allowed to bar access to the children without a court ordered visitation schedule in place. Again, would a judge ever throw the book at you for asking the WS to follow a visitation schedule and saying no to time outside of the schedule? No! Do you need to see a lawyer before you tell your WS that you expect them to follow a schedule? No! Geez.

"So basically, it's a fine line here between getting legal advice with lawyers who will probably tell me to do NOTHING, the law which is the law, and the vets here who are telling me to keep going."

That's exactly right, jah. And keep in mind that a lawyer does not care about saving your marriage or about protecting you from the trauma of an affair. They are NOT experts on marriage. The best plan is to change the locks and then tell your lawyer he needs to protect you if necessary. That is what many folks have done here.

The same with exposure. It is not harassment to tell the truth in America. But lawyers are lazy and want to avoid conflict at all costs. Again, they don't give a rip if you save your marriage because their job is to break up marriages. We have had even had lazy lawyers tell their clients they couldn't go into Plan B.

The bottom line is that most lawyers do not have your best interest at heart so it is best to do what is right for your situation and tell him to earn his pay by making sure you are protected. You are the one who has to live with the consequences, after all.

joh, it's probably a moot point, since you've already changed them. you're not going to change them back, right?

i totally agree that *everyone* should know the laws of their state.

where i live, it is completely, totally illegal to change the locks to keep a spouse out. i was willing to take that risk to stop the craziness in my life. i had a similar experience to you - got them done in an hour, both entries, only my locksmith asked me nothing.

was my H pissed? YES. did he see a lawyer? YES. did it change anything? no. basically, although he had a legal leg to stand on, the legal point was: did he want to end the M and take legal steps to have the house? no.

i would have gone through the legal process and exposed his behaviour to the whole world (via court), and his pushing the issue would have put us on the road to separation of assets and divorce. some WSs may do that. the BS has to be ready for the consequences as well.

everyone needs to think their situation through to the end when considering lockout. i knew that in my case, even if he got to push me out, i would then get sole possession of another of our houses anyhow, and his revenge would be pointless in that way. not to mention the empty LB$ and ultimate divorce. he wasn't willing to risk that immediate consequence, though i was!

Letty, most WS's react just as yours did. The last thing they want is to go before a judge and have to listen to their betrayed spouse explain exactly WHY the locks were changed in an open court. It just makes them look even more cruel than they really are. They don't want the truth of their affair dragged through court. WS' always back down on this point. And if they don't, so what? The worst thing that can happen is you have to give him a key.


I know of one case of a board member, BH, in England changed the locks on his WW. She called the police and they told her to have her attorney handle it. Her attorney sent his attorney a letter explaining about the affair and how upsetting it was to be in her presence. Her attorney backed off completely.

that's why i was happy to add my 2 cents

Thanks again everyone for your advice.

I think I'm going to stick with what I wrote above. I know you are just trying to look our for me, HDW, and I don't mean any disrespect. But the truth is that I just started out as a physician. I have more loans than assets. I don't own a house or even have mortgage, I own a beat up 2000 $ car, and I have only about 2000 $ in savings. That's honestly it. I put the rest of the money I've been making to try and pay my loans off faster (almost 100K left). So even if they came after me I don't have much to give anyways at this point in my life. If the worst thing that happened is that they froze my assets, scrutinized my practice, made me pay for her lawyer, then that's fine. I'll go straight for divorce and that will be that.

I WILL try and educate myself about the law. But I am not going to ask my lawyer for advice unless it is imminent that legal action is going to take place. Like what people have said and what I have already experienced, my lawyer tells me to stop all action even when it's not against the law.

Some updates for you all: my IM e-mailed me that after my wife called me 6 times from an unknown phone number yesterday, she then called my IM saying she was ready for all the conditions. My IM then stated that an agreement wasn't good enough, that some action was required this time. The action I specified was having a no contact letter drafted by my wife, have my wife set up a polygraph appointment, and handing over all the passwords to my WW stuff. This is because once before my WW agreed to my conditions just to get to talk to me. In any case, I still think it's a combination of my wife wanting 'cake eating' and also wavering on being with me. Actually, even if she did show initiative and agreed to my conditions, I would still keep her out of the apartment and for a month or two to see more genuine action that she wants to work on the marriage.

Despite making it clear to my friends that I want NO UPDATES on my wife, a few of them have still been calling to update me. I thank them for their concern, but I firmly ask them again that I do not want to be updated AT ALL. They agree and say they understand, but who knows? I tell them that they think it's helping me by updating me, but it's really just hurting me more.

So anyways, despite not wanting to be updated, I still found out information about my wife, and so I might as well share them here.

One friend said that my wife was crying one night after reading her e-mail from my IM restating that there is to be no contact between my wife and me and that she should only send messages to my IM. My wife also cried when she found I packed all her stuff.

Another friend of my wife said that she couldn't bear kicking my wife out of her apartment. My wife asked to stay with her three weeks, and this friend said only two days, but then wavered today and then made it ten days. I told this friend that it's up to her, she can do what she wants, but it's supporting the affair to let her stay longer. This friend is afraid that my wife will just go and stay with the OM, but I told her that by kicking her out the OM might also not let her stay either, and this will stop the affair faster. In the end, she couldn't make up her mind, and I just told her, do whatever you want, but don't update me anymore. Don't tell me if she stays, or goes, or when she goes, or where she goes. I don't want to know.

I'm not sure what to make of all this. My initial thought is that my wife is a huge 'cake eater', and that this 'cut off from finances and apartment' is not having the effect I thought it would have. But it's just day 6 of plan B, so who knows. Like I said, she doesn't work, no savings, no finances. She also might still see me as a 'doormat' that won't divorce her. I am trying not to be a 'doormat', and I'm learning alot about myself in the process. Well, the letter I gave to my IM to give to her should convince her otherwise (see a few posts back).

Anyone with any other thoughts?

She is crying because she lost her personal ATM. Jah, it occurs to me that she has a philosophy of marriage that dictates she is to follow her heart. Which means if she meets a new love interest that she is entitled to pursue it by virtue of her feelings alone. Does she even believe there is anything wrong with adultery? Has she ever indicated she believes she did anything wrong?

Thanks for reading, ML. Yes, before going dark (when she was in her home country) she actually has told me she knows that she has hurt me so badly. She apologized to me for hurting me. She said that she knows what she did is wrong, and she doesn't know why it happened. To me that sounds a little like crazy talk; either that or it shows how she doesn't realize how friendships can lead to adultery if the situation is right (I have a little better understanding through going through the MB website).

There was one time I mentioned that she better go to a priest and ask for God's forgiveness, she burst out crying even more. I don't think she is faking this.

I've been reading other threads, where the WS has no remorse and feels like the BS somehow deserved what happened. I don't think this is the case with my wife.

Oh, and this one part is VERY confusing. A friend of my wife came up to me today and gave me a little over a hundred dollars. She said that my wife really wants to support herself as she makes her decision to return to me or not. She said that this is the extra cash from her trip to her home country (she brought only cash when she traveled to her home country).

A hundred is not much money. But I don't think my wife is devious enough to be playing any mind games with me, do you?

But her remorse doesn't stop her from repeating her affairs. So I wonder if the tears are more for show? It is obvious that she is not committed to the marriage in any sense of the word. She must have a narrative that tells her she is entitled to have affairs. Se doesn't accept that marriage means an exclusive relationship. As long as she has that personal philosophy, you will never be safe with her.

I think she will do or say anything to get you to continue supporting her so you might want to hold out until she becomes self supporting. Do you think she is looking for a job?

Yes she is. I think that is great she wants to support herself. I think you should tell her friend that you agree she needs to do that. Let her prove she isn't only in this marriage to use you as her personal ATM.

I have no idea if she is looking for a job, since I have gone 'dark'. Should I try and find out?

Your first point is an important one that I have realized beforehand. If she knows it is wrong, and sees how much it hurts me, and tells me she feels bad about doing it, then why has repeated the adultery again and again? I have asked her that before and she just remains silent; she cannot give me an answer.

This makes me think that like you said, either she has a narrative in her head saying she is entitled to affairs, or she doesn't realize the conditions that can lead to affairs.

Yes, I do agree that she needs to prove herself financially. That will be a condition before moving in back with me.

There is one other thing I would like to mention, though. There was a time in our marriage when she actually did work. I can count five separate jobs that she found on her own and did for 2-5 months at a time. Mostly labor jobs: hamburger joint, bakery, restaurant, babysitter, and English tutor. Somehow, she couldn't get many jobs in her major of English as a Second Language, although she really did try and apply all over. It's competitive, I guess.

One of her jobs she actually worked for 4 months straight and then used all of that money to buy me an ipad for my birthday, which I had always been drooling over but held out buying because I felt it was a 'want' not a 'need'. This is two years ago, when our marriage was still strong.

I guess my point is that there was a time where I wasn't just the ATM and she did contribute. Somehow, when our marriage went downhill, so did her attitude I guess.

"This makes me think that like you said, either she has a narrative in her head saying she is entitled to affairs, or she doesn't realize the conditions that can lead to affairs."

After 3 affairs in 3 years, it is apparent it does not happen by accident, but by design. She is actively seeking affairs.

NO. you should not find out. jah, you have way too much post plan b info to be completely dark.

you, like many of us, are in that hopeful place - "this will do the trick!" sometimes it does. sometimes it doesn't. i have noticed that sometimes thread titles are our secret realizations. yours says "time to quit?" this may be a reality. you knew this when you entered plan b.

in plan b, you are supposed to be thinking of yourself. what have you done for YOU today? that doesn't have anything to do with your WW?

Hi Letty. Thanks for the support.

Yes, I am doing things for myself. I bought a stand-up paddle board and a few days ago went surfing for the first time; that was a fun experience. I've tried surfing before, but never was able to 'pop up' and stand; this way I'm already standing. I went out last night to play poker with some of my buddies (first time I've been out with friends for a few weeks). I also am applying to a job in my home town where I grew up, closer to family; this is the job I have always wanted. It's about 200 miles away from where I live now. So yes, I am still having cautious hope but I'm also moving on.

very good to hear. had forgotten about the paddleboard! how is it? it looks scary to someone like me with little balance control! good for the bod and the head, eh?

Hehe, yes, paddleboarding is good on many levels. It's good exercise, good to relax, and good to clear my head.

I think I might as well reveal my state since I am talking about paddleboarding; I live in Hawaii and thus I get to paddleboard out to the ocean and watch sunsets. Very nice.

But if you lose your balance; it's like hitting the floor! Pretty painful!

Jealous

Whew, if you have to go through Hell, paradise is the place to do it!

Ditto on the jealous, BTW.

Jah,
When you mention that your wife worked hard and saved her money to buy an iPad for yor birthday I understand your pain and confusion.
My ww also gave me gift to make me happy.
In my pain and confusion one board member told me something that helped me: he said pretend that your wife is posessed by aliens. Same body, different person. It helped me. Maybe it will help you.

Dr Harley says thy affair participants exhibit behavior similar to addicts. Their addictions/ affairs control them

Route that number to answering service perhaps?

HDW - My wife possessed by aliens? That's an interesting thought; although then I would be thinking, "Where did you put my wife's real mind! I want her back!" But alas, the alien race is to advance for our medical technology, so I can't do anything about it.

I like the idea of addiction, though. I feel exactly that way, like my wife is on meth and can't get enough. I have worked with meth addicts before, and sometimes when you try everything and it doesn't work, you just have to learn to let go. This is why I keep going, because although this is my wife's third time, I have not tried everything. In fact, the first two times I basically tried NOTHING (i.e. marriage counseling).

CGB - Thanks for the idea; I did think about using an answering service, and there is an physician answering service in my state. But I'd still have to notify my patients of the number change, and it's 85$ a month and 0.50 cents a call. If I routed my number straight to the service, my wife could easily lie to get to me.

I'm going to hold off for a little more and if it continues to be a big problem I'll have to do something about it.

Excellent radio clip where Dr. H talks about what a WH should do for his wife to give him another try after his affairs. He explains it like an addict.

Radio Clip on a WH on what to do to get back with his wife 3:50 mark
You can hear how he explains it like an addict.

Thanks BH, I really appreciated that clip. It gave me alot to think about.

A little more about my background . . . I started off my medical residency training in child psychiatry and adult psychiatry. I did a year of that - and then switched to pediatrics. Couldn't stand the hopelessness. So I do have a little experience in psychiatry and addictions.

I remember being locked up in the psych ER working with drug addicts, seeing how crazy they can get. I worked in the addiction clinics, and I felt hopeless seeing how many of them were going nowhere, low-income with no family support, cycling in and out of drug addiction. That's why I gave up.

Fast forward to my current situation. I want to make a point here.

I have been getting alot of people telling me that my wife had an affair three times, that she's obviously not marriage material, that I don't have kids yet to complicate things, and that I should just give up and divorce. I respect each and every one of your opinions. But I still respectfully disagree.

I will take every criticism you want to give me for being an enabler, a doormat, a pansy, gullible, stubborn, etc. I understand that point and I am trying to change my life. Not for my wife, but FOR MYSELF.

But I will not take criticism for being faithful and loyal to my wife, for giving my marriage every chance possible. I am trying my best here, and I will hold my head high no matter what knowing I did everything I could.

Think about this: as betrayed spouses know, wayward spouses often have this either religious or fairytail fantasy thought that "This person was meant to be with me! It's destiny! God made it happen! It's true love!" My wife falls in this category. But we all know that's not how love and marriage works.

In the same way, anyone who thinks, "She cheated on you three times! Your love should be strong enough for her not to do that! She doesn't care about you or your marriage at all." is crazy also, I think. My wife had two affairs before I found marriage builders. My action to the first two affairs was continuing to be enabling, to do no exposure, to remain a 'doormat' and to start seeing a marriage counseler (which was retrospectively absolutely worthless). I don't blame myself for my wife's affairs, but at the same time, I understand why they continued. It's because I am a HUGE enabler, probably the biggest one here.

But after this third affair, I am taking action this time with a plan. I have the support of family and friends, as well as the support of my wife's family and friends who will hold her accountable. I have the support of the people here on marriage builders. I have a list of conditions (Extraordinary Precautions) to make another affair unlikely, and I plan to add to that list as I learn more. I want to change myself from being an enabler. So yes, this is my wifes third affair, but this time I'm taking action and doing EVERYTHING that I can.

So lets compare it again to an addiction. Lets say my wife had an addiction to cocaine, and all I did was told her to stop because it's wrong, and I told her that it's hurting me. And that's all I did. If she did stop for awhile and then went back and used cocaine again, can you blame her? If I didn't have a plan or a made her go through an addiction program, and I basically hoped her love for me and seeing how much it hurt me would help her stop, can you blame her for doing it again? I'd blame myself for being an idiot. Drugs like cocaine or meth makes people crazy and not think straight; it is the same with a wayward spouse with they way they are in the 'fog', I think. And if I stuck by my wife and tried everything I could to get her out of her cocaine addiction, would you respect my decision?

That is how I feel about the whole situation. I want to do this properly this time, doing everything I can. But I am NOT going to give up on my wife, even after the third affair, because I didn't do anything to correct things after the first two times. I still care about my wife, and I care about our marriage.

But lets say if after I do all these precautions on working on our marriage properly, go through marriage builders, and have a good plan in place and people holding her accountable, if after all this my wife goes and has a FOURTH affair? I'm ready to let go, because sometimes you just have to admit there is no saving some people. Just like addicts who despite having all the support in the world and finishing a good drug rehab program, if they end up doing drugs again, sometimes you just have to let them go.

So again, you can criticize me all you want for being a 'enabler, a doormat, a pansy, gullible, etc.' I will accept your criticism and I will try my best to learn from it.

But don't criticize me for still holding on to plan B, still trying my best, even after the third affair. For being loyal. For giving my marriage a chance because I'm an old fashioned guy that refuses to give up on the concept of marriage, that I don't abandon my wife until I have tried everything there is and there is no hope left.

Sorry about the rant; let the criticism begin!

On your wife not being marriage material that everyone is telling you.

Have you read Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders the book by Dr. Harley? If not you should get it, it's very good.

Here's a cliff notes version. Tell me what you think.
Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders

I'm not going to criticise Jah. I believe loyalty is always admirable. Even if in some cases it is misguided. Your loyalty IS misguided. WW has shown you no loyalty. But I don't believe any of us here on MB can tell you that you are wrong to give your WW every chance to recover the marriage, providing you are following the plans.

When I first started fighting for my marriage, I believed I would do anything to save my WH from his addiction, to save him. I did not want to give up on him. Our marriage, and the man he was, were worth the fight.

I believed everything he had offered me, and what we had experienced together, meant I should fight all the harder. That I owed him this.

Your sitch is different in that you KNOW WW is a serial cheater. You seem to be weighing this up, knowing it places you in a more precarious position. Your WW has MUCH more to change. Her behaviour is a PATTERN.

I am 12 months since D Day. I have fought with all I had. My IM can testify to that. My parents can testify to that. I have given this my all. Plan A, Exposure, Plan B, and re-exposure. I may not have done everything exactly according to MB plans, but I followed them as best I could with the information I had to hand. I was trickle truthed at its finest.

I want you to know this... Now... I am PROUD I acted as I did and continue to do. I have done everything I could to stand up for what is right. For what I believe in.

I no longer care so much what others or WH believes in. Plan B is about me. Even in Plan B, when I continue to challenge WH, it is about whether this challenge will make me feel better. Not about what effect it will have on him. I no longer believe anything I do has an effect on WH, and this is no longer what drives me.

I know that I can not educate a wayward.

What motivates me is what will make me feel good about myself at the end of the day, and possibly the end of the marriage.

I will be able to walk away knowing I did all I could. I take great satisfaction in this.

Also here's the thread on vultures you were asking about.
Vultures

Hey BH. Thanks for that link, I think you solved all our problems! Honestly, that is probably the biggest problem I see in our marriage. I am a full giver, she is a full taker, and we are both renters. My taker side is screaming out loud, and that has made me so irritable this past year. Do you know what I used to tell my wife for all these years? Over and over? "My happiness comes from your happiness." I thought that was a sweet statement to make, but now I understand how it's absolutely terrible! No wonder I was a 'doormat'.

I will certainly get that book. I am still trying to read through SAA, LB, HNHN, but really, that book sounds like it's gonna be much more important if we ever work on our marriage.

I don't think your wife's a renter but she's a Freeloader.
That book is definitely eye opening. It's one of my favorites.

It explains a lot about the different stages. I love that it explains how a renter can become a buyer.

Caracal, thank you for your advice. You have given me lots of advice through all this, and so I can't help but listen to what you have to say.

My loyalty might be misguided, but I want to be like you and be able to say that I did everything I possibly could to save this marriage. Then I can let it go.

In medicine, we have a joke that, "If only we had a retrospectoscope." It means that it is easy to retrospectively look back and say, "Of course this was the diagnosis! All the signs were there!" But it's easy to say say that afterwards when you know the diagnosis. It's not easy at that time.

In the same way, I know that some people with more experience will see my situation and say, "Your marriage is doomed! The signs are all there!" But it's not so easy for me to see it. And I think I might be to stubborn to believe it. But well, like in medicine, miracles do happen, right?

And like I said, I want to be like you, able to say that I did everything I could to save this marriage. Because it works both ways. If I give up now, I will regret forever not knowing if there still was a chance.

I don't know, I think I'm still just rambling on . . .

I think this is one of the most important parts of healing from infidelity and (possibly) a subsequent divorce.

Knowing you did all you could. And the wayward refused to commit to the most basic of steps.

Nope, not rambling at all. Just showing your loyalty and commitment to marriage.

Follow the plans. In your shoes, I would definately file for D. As Melody says, if you file, you are win win.

If you don't file... what advantage do you have?

Think Art of War jah. And answer that question.

Doc, I can understand your point about "all past is prologue", and starting to demand integrity and accountability only now that you have garnered knowledge of all the demands and expectations of marriage (Four strikes and you're out!). I fear you may be giving your WW too much credit for being "ignorant" as opposed to "malicious" and "selfish" here, however.

Did she not understand after A1 (giving her the first free bite at Eve's apple) the destructiveness and pain of which she was the cause? Not after A2? Do you mean to convince yourself that YOUR knowledge of MB is somehow necessary to instruct an adult woman in what "integrity", "honor", "fidelity", and "common decency" mean?

You're right, of course, in stating that your actions are driven by your goals and determine your future. My (our?) actions here are to support you and identify the rocks in your plotted course. That said, there will likely be conflicts in our discourse.

BTW: I did chuckle at your (probable) malapropism:

...wayward spouses often have this...fairytail fantasy...

And to think I always believed that

...wayward males often have this...piece-o-tail fantasy...

(BYW: Your bumper-sticker epilogue is somewhat insulting to those faithful husbands among us who proclaim our love for our wives, without needing to apologize for indiscretions.)

None. No advantage. And in fact I have a lawyer and I am filing. But I'm not exactly rushing through the paperwork . . .

Yes, I know I give my WW too much credit. I am probably 'in the fog' myself, trying to justify giving my wife another chance.

Had to look up "malapropism". I didn't mean that; even after looking it up I'm not sure what I was doing. But I'm glad if it gave you a chuckle.

I'll take down my 'bumper sticker' epilogue. THAT one was supposed to give you a chuckle, but if you think it might offend some people, it doesn't have to be up.

I'll post it here one last time so people know what your talking about:

"'I Love My Wife' bumper stickers are strictly for men who were caught cheating."

Glad you recognise and are ACTING on this jah.

Keep acting.

I agree that the bumper sticker line missed the mark.

Dr. J., I think you are apologizing for that wife. Id lay odds of 100:1 that this divorce threat goes nowhere.

At one time you show the promise of a man who is in complete control of his future then in the next post will display a meekness of p-whipped loser.

You are a doctor who was cheated on 3x by an ingrate. You are young and unencumbered by children. You have the freaking world by the cajones. Go out and live a little.

If this wife wants to date you, I'd accept that. Some sushi and Sapporo is fine. She should be but one of several you are seeing, man. She told you its ok after the 2nd affair (by having it). But to pay her way while she does others is insane. And with your background, you could diagnose yourself.

I'm a guy saying this but I have to believe some ladies here would agree.

Part of your process Jah is coming to terms with the fact that your wife is not who you think she is. She's not someone who got swept into one affair and is now remorseful and willing to do whatever it takes to recover. Instead, she just may be a spoiled girl who feels entitled to do whatever, whenever and everyone else is expected to just roll with it.

Maybe this was part of her charm, initially and it felt good to care and protect her. You wanted to spoil and pet her because it was sweet and charming. Now you're waking up and starting to come out of your own fog and realizing that maybe, just maybe you don't know her at all.

You picked a healing profession. So did I (I'm a counselor and had an EA a couple years ago, so I 'get' the wayward fog). Is it possible the healer in you picked a seriously wounded/flawed partner? I see this a lot. It's comfortable to be the healer. It gives a certain degree of control. Did you pick someone to 'heal'? If so, you got off to a false start and to expect her to step up and change is like expecting some of the drug addicts you observed to do the same.

Why do you have to lead her? Good heavens. She needs to be showing YOU what she's willing to do!

Consider the notion that you can find a partner who is more equal and can give back, instead of taking, taking, taking.

What I see in your missive above is that you need time to work through your own complex feelings about the partner you chose. You're going to have to grieve this. You can do the plan and do a stellar job but unless SHE puts forth serious effort, it just isn't going to work and that might be the biggest blessing in disguise you're ever received.

Check out JenniferVoyager's thread(s). She fell in love after a disastrous first marriage that ended with her exh's infidelity. She married the second husband, had a baby and slowly discovered that he was pretty useless as a partner.

He could never hold a job, he broke promises, right and left, they bought a house to renovate (because he has skills) and he just let the whole thing rot while she toiled away at her job supporting the children AND him.

It took months for her to see that no amount of work was going to shift this guy. His EA is what brought her here and it took a long time for her to realize he wasn't going to cut it as a partner.

They're heading towards divorce and he has basically decided to move 400 miles away, abandoning his son so he can be close to his AP. He is a FREELOADER. I don't think your wife is a renter...she is a FREELOADER. It's a tough pill to swallow but once you get a chance to sit with the truth, you'll star to see that you've already done A LOT to make this work. Now it's her turn...

jah, I think you are doing the right things and will not argue with your plan. Your plan ensures you are protected regardless of how this turns out. If your wife doesn't change, then you are divorced. If she does change, then you have a shot at a good marriage. Plan B takes you out of the situation so your anxiety level goes down and your ability to use good judgement increases.

I do object to your description of her affairs as an "addiction." She is not in a fog at all, she is not addicted.. This is her way of life. She has a worldview that reflects a belief that she is entitled to pursue affairs. She did not just stumble into an affair like most people, she actively pursues them. She lives like a single person.. There is nothing foggy about that.

And no, a person who gets married and never stops chasing men is not marriage material. That doesn't mean she can't become marriage material, but there is nothing you can do to force her to change. Plan B will not force her to change. While exposure may have a small effect, it does not have the same effect it would on a one time cheater who really is in the fog. The power of exposure comes from piercing the fog. There is no fog here, though, so exposure will be of minimal effect.

Just so you know, Dr Harley says that most serial cheaters are anti-social personalities. Your wife may fall into that category.

My concern with you is that you believe that you have the power to change your wife. And you don't. All you can do is remove yourself from the situation and stop enabling her affairs. That is all you can do. You do understand this, right?

I agree with this. I think if his wife were to be completely honest, she would admit that she feels entitled to "follow her heart," whereever that may lead. And she may even admit that she got married for the sole purpose of gaining a meal ticket. Three affairs in three years is someone who is not and was never serious about marriage.

Your wife fits the description of the freeloader exactly:

Freeloader is unwilling to put much effort into the care of his or her partner in a romantic relationship. He or she does only what comes naturally and expects only what comes naturally. It's like a person who tries to live in a house without paying rent or doing anything to improve it unless the person is in the mood to do so.

Renter is willing to provide limited care as long as it's in his or her best interest. The romantic relationship is considered tentative, so the care is viewed as short-term. It's like a person who rents a house and is willing to stay as long as the conditions seem fair, or until he or she finds something better. The person is willing to pay reasonable rent and keep the house clean but is not willing to make repairs or improvements. It's the landlord's job to keep the place attractive enough for the renter to stay and continue paying rent.

Buyer is willing to demonstrate an extraordinary sense of care by making permanent changes in his or her own behavior and lifestyle to make the romantic relationship mutually fulfilling. Solutions to problems are long-term solutions and must work well for both partners because the romantic relationship is viewed as exclusive and permanent. It's like a person who buys a house for life with a willingness to make repairs that accomodate changing needs, painting the walls, installing new carpet, replacing the roof, and even doing some remodeling so that it can be comfortable and useful.

Okay everyone, I woke up this morning knowing that those 2x4's were coming. I really do thank you for reading my long posts and replying. I have a hard-head you know, harder than than most people!

I still honestly think my wife was not a freeloader when we got married. But I agree with you all, she is one now.

This is what I agree with you all 100%:
- My wife is a freeloader.
- I can't change my wife; I can only change myself.
- I am doing all of the work. I don't see any effort on her part.
- All I can do is get out of the situation and stop enabling her affairs.
- She's not in a 'fog' stumbling into affairs. She is actively looking for them.
- Filing for divorce is a win/win for me.*

And you know what else I realized? Subconsciously, I have been hoping that cutting my wife off from the apartment and from finances would make her stop her behavior, make her accept my conditions and work on the marriage. Other people here even told me so, "Don't worry Jah, if you are the sole provider, going into plan B will make her come back quickly."

But how pathetic is that? It's counterintuitive! Have my wife work on the marriage because finances were cut off? That's not supposed to be the reason! It's supposed to be because she values the marriage!

So let me tell you what that * means up there. It means even though I am in plan B, I am not waiting around the '2 years' that is suggested. I'm not even going to wait the 3-4 months I had originally made up my mind that I would wait. I'm going to go full speed ahead with this divorce.

Thank you all again for putting up with me. I know it took time but I finally get it now. Are there any more 2x4's left for me to take? I'm getting a concussion here, but I can handle it.

You are doing just great, jah. What you are doing is preparing yourself for the worst, but still leaving a very narrow path back for your wife. And I hope you understand that the 2x4s are done out of compassion and caring. We all realize how hard it is to be objective in the midst of such an emotional situation.

Yes, I know these 2x4's are done out of compassion. My wife doesn't need 'tough love', I do.

I have not sent that divorce letter out to my wife yet (see a few pages back), because I kept getting messages from my IM and wife's friends asking to clarify my conditions. I would clarify it, and then restate that there is NO NEGOTIATION. So my IM would ask (on my wife's behalf),

"Does no male friends mean even a friend that BOTH of us know well?" My answer: Yes. No male friends means ALL MALES.

"What questions are you going to ask on the polygraph?" My answer: The questions are to find affair triggers and to bring out other affairs or possible affair. I will ask any and all questions I need to ask, you do NOT need to know beforehand.

"Do you want me to write the NO CONTACT letter and send it now?" My answer: no, I need to approve it frist.

(that was an important one. I didn't want a lovey dovey, "I'll still remember you" kind of no contact letter)

Anyways, that's why I didn't send the divorce letter yet. But I think that's okay, because I looked over the old one, and it's still too kind. So I'm drafting a new one.

Okay, here is my letter. I think it's one huge 4x4 for my wife. Please tell me if you think I'm going overboard and too hateful; I happen to think it's perfect:

[WS],
This will be my LAST message to you. I am not going to wait any longer for you to make a decision. There are so many people: friends, relatives, workmates, etc that have told me to just give up on you and divorce. I held out as long as I could, but I agree with them all now.

Let me tell you EXACTLY what is happening here:
- I am doing ALL THE WORK to save this marriage. I gave you conditions under which I would take you back. Most guys would not even do that, they would have just divorced you already.
- I have not seen ANY effort on your part to work on this marriage. Continuing to be separated only shows that you would take the risk of divorce just to be with this guy. That shows that this marriage means NOTHING to you.
- You are not 'mistakingly' meeting other guys and having sex with them. No, you are ACTIVELY looking for men to have sex. You do not care at all about hurting me, or about breaking our marriage vows. It's all about what YOU want.
- For all this time, I work hard and provide everything for YOU. And all this time, you live here, buy clothes to impress other guys, and use the money I make to buy dinners and gifts for other men! You have sex with other men while I am out on call working 40 hour shifts. You cannot deny any of this.

I find absolutely no reason to hang on to you any more. I needed to see HUGE changes from you, in attitude, behavior, and actions, before I can take you back. And I have seen NOTHING. You use and abuse me, lie to me, cheat on me, and each time you say "I love you" is it nothing more than a lie.

I have already contacted a lawyer regarding a divorce. Because there are no kids involved, the paperwork will be fast. All I need to do is document all our assets (what we both own), their worth, and then show verification.

I WILL NOT wait for you any longer. Once the paperwork is done I will sign it immediately. I WILL NOT contact you before signing it, and I DO NOT need your consent or your signature. Once the divorce is final, you will be receiving a notice from my lawyer that it is done. After that, don't bother to contact me any more.

All your stuff is packed and out of my life. I have taken all communication with you out out of my life. And now I want you out of my life.

I am moving on. May God forgive you for what you have done, because I surely will not.

Jah

I wouldn't change one word.

Bravo!

It might feel good to send that letter. You obviously need to get some stuff off your chest.

You're in plan B for your PERSONAL recovery. Plan B means no contact. If it were me, I'd have her served and just let her deal with the shock of it all, which you won't know about if you're serious about plan B.

Write letters like this and burn them to get it all off your chest. It might not feel as good to send this as you think and it feels like you're still anxious to provoke some kind of action or response from her.

Bring the focus back to you...back to you...back to YOU.

Don't send another letter! You already sent a Plan B letter saying she can't contact you unless she meets your conditions. And now you contact her? That just harms your credibility.

Just file for divorce and let her be served.

exactamundo!

Jah,

Didn't you write all this in your Plan B letter? Your conditions? Your love? You gave her the path home, correct?

She isn't an idiot, correct?

I'm confused why you're writing another one? You're in Plan B. No contact.

Go file for divorce on Monday and have her served. In the meantime, if she makes dramatic personal changes you can consider taking her back and dropping the divorce.

That letter hurts your credibility because it reads like this:

"I really, really, really mean it this time!! If you don't get on board there will be consequences. I really, really, really mean it!"

That just says you didn't mean what you said in your Plan B letter. You need to stick to your guns, stay dark and then have her served with divorce papers next week. She will believe you are serious about divorce when she is served. You shouldn't be making idle threats. Just do it...

agreed. jah, you're in that place - the "why hasn't she done what i want yet?" place. NC means NC, and that's includes from you to her! hang in there, you're doing great to air your thoughts and feelings here. but if you go back and read your thread, you flip flop all the time. this is normal. but don't ACT on it. stick with the plan. file today.

Jah, Plan B is silent because its serious. It needs make no defences of itself.

A rant, while cathartic, is not serious.

Silence is as serious as it gets.

Keep her in the dark about your anger and pain right now.

GO dark.

Being dark, hitting the grief, getting through the grief and coming out the other side is much better medicine than lashing out.

Withdrawal lasts a few weeks the worst of it. Stop trying to distract yourself and get on with your own healing.

What self care do you have planned?

Jah, I just bumped the "betrayed spouses...be still" thread. You should read it. I needed to read it. Zibbles is right, we can't break Plan B, it will only hurt us to do so.

Okay, I guess this is all the 'process' of plan B, where the rollercoaster will eventually slow down. I understand that plan B is for my recovery and to help me think clearer and take care of myself, and the point is not to try and 'force' my wife to come back.

Zibbles - Okay, maybe I should print this letter and burn it to get it off my chest. But do you all at least think that I'm starting to come out of my own fog with understanding the situation better?

ML - You said sending another letter would hurt my credibility. But I wasn't going to send it directly. It was still going through my IM.

BH - I did write my plan B letter, and I went back to read it and it makes me sick! I followed alot of the plan B advice for the letter under 'notable posts'. So it mentioned my continued love, about my conditions and that I still want to take her back. Stuff about how I was sorry for being neglectful, that what she did hurt me badly and so I need to heal by cutting off communication, living conditions, and finances. I think that the time I have spent in actual plan B, I have started to realize how little I care about the marriage now.

JV - Okay, I'll look through that. I have to ask this . . . What the hell is a 'bump'?

*sigh* The last time I had a breakdown like this was a few days into plan B when I was panicking about losing contact with my wife. Well, 8 days now and I have no DIRECT contact with my wife, and it's been wonderful. But there are cracks; a few friends keep giving me minor updates. I tell them I don't want the updates, I explain why, and I firmly tell them to stop doing it.

My IM has also told me: Your wife keeps asking me, "Do you think he will actually divorce me? Do you think he really means it?" That's part of the reason I wanted to send this letter, because my plan B letter was to kind and she doesn't believe it, as well as give a 2x4 to my wife which I haven't done yet. Well, maybe I also need a talk with my IM some more about this whole 'no contact' thing.

Okay, here's the deal. I won't send the letter if you all say so. I will burn that letter as a way to get 'anger off my chest'. But can someone at least tell me that the letter shows I am understanding the situation a littler better now?

And I will not drag my feet with filing the divorce paperwork. I'm just going to just do it and give it to my wife and that will be enough to show my seriousness. (not this letter saying I really, really, really mean it this time!)

Oh, and sorry about all this 'flip-floping' as Letty said. I really would do well as a politician, huh?

jah, part of your flip flopping on this letter might be due to what I said when you first posted it. Ignore what I said. I was wrong. The Plan B letter has been served and that is more than sufficient. I understand where you are coming from in wanting write and send it (as I have wanted to do in the past), but the dear ladies of MB are right. I was drawing off of past pain and experiences I suppose, and ignored the principles that I know are righteous and obviously forgot when I responded to you.

My bad.

BTW, really amazed at your turn around during this crap storm you've been dealt. Well done. You deserve so much better than this and I know you'll have it one day.

Flip flopping is totally normal!

You'll see a dramatic improvement on the rollercoaster q soon, but it takes ages.

You'll have good times, but buckle down to at least six months of self care and ups and downs.



Yeah. A taste of Plan B will do that. But its still all about her. She doesn't matter in Plan B.



Have your IMread the training thread. Its a nightmare job unless you know what you're doing. Its easy when you do.

Your wife doesn't need a 2x4. She doesn't need anything. We're talking about you now.

Hey TW, no problem! Thanks again for the support. Like I said, I am trying to understand the whole situation better and stop being an enabler and 'doormat' any more. I'm doing this for MYSELF.

One good thing is that it's SO much easier to clean the apartment now! Like I said, my wife hoarded all this junk, while I am a 'live simple' kind of guy. I kept looking at things and saying to myself, "Should I keep this or dump it? It's junk she never touched in a year, but well . . . she might still want it."

Now I just dump the junk! *laugh* Don't worry, I assure you it's all junk; the stuff she really needs is in storage. In any case, my own attitude is changing for the better.

Okay, and I really am going to kick this 'all about me' into overdrive. I've started making plans: another night of poker with my buddies this tuesday, going with friends to watch the fireworks for 4th of July on wednesday, dinner with coworkers on friday. By Sunday, I have a week off, so I'm going back to my hometown (different island) to visit my family for a week of fishing. Oh how I love fishing. That's going to be the ultimate relaxation thing for me.

Say what?? Is the letter from you or not? It doesn't matter who delivers the letter, my point is the same. When you are in Plan B, it means no contact!


Good man!! See, she doesn't believe you are serious. Sending a threat will not convey your seriousness. But being served with divorce papers WILL. She needs to be served.

Jah...sounds like great self care. And the idea of de-cluttering your place is great as well. Make it YOURS.

A bump just moves a thread from being buried down on page 15 or something up to the front page, so someone can see it.

I <3 MelodyLane. Actions, not words.

Also jah does your IM have this? IM Training School

Send it to her because my concern is your IM is not filtering as much as she should. She shouldn't be telling you all the manipulative stuff that your WW is telling her. Your IM needs to give a little more "I'm not relaying any message to jah unless it's your actions to meet his conditions which you have from his letter".

oh jah, i flipped and flopped several times a day! it's normal. just don't ACT on it. btw, a "bump" is when someone posts to a thread that hasn't been posted to in a long time, so it is "bumped" to the top of the active list.

wait, last note: your IM is supposed to be a spam filter. she should not be telling you WW said this, WW said that. she tells you NOTHING, unless WW has shown some good faith towards recovering the M. NOW GO DARK! (caps for emphasis. ok, shouting!) :O)

ok, super last note. i, too, pried info out of my IM. once. once was enough. it hurts too much and you're right back at the start of the coaster ride. so stop it! if you have to, tell her to tell you nothing, even if you BEG. then feel good about yourself - you're no beggar, right?

Jah - page 30 you ask us to consider if your wife was addicted to cocaine and ask : if you did not do certain things and she continued using can we blame her?

You worked in addiction clinics so you must be familiar with the 12 Steps. YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER ADICTIONS ( Step 1)

You don't even have control over your wife's affairs. You speak of loyalty to your wife but she has no loyalty to you. You are trying to mold her, To influence her.

I understand you are no longer enabling her and allowing the natural consequences of her actions to come to fruition. That is all you can do.

Plan A helped me stay sane with my circumstances.
Someone said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.
Your wife is experiencing a different result.

Thanks again for your support, Letty and HDW. Yes, I agree I have no control over my wife's 'addiction' or behavior. I can only control myself.

More plan B cracks tonight. The friend that my wife is staying with called for the 3rd time in a week to tell me that she is kicking my wife out of her dormroom. And for the 3rd time, I told her to not update me, that I do not want to know. I am going to block this friend on my phone too from now on.

Then, tonight my wife left me a message on facebook. I already have her e-mails blocked, and phone calls blocked, but I forgot about facebook. Actually, I didn't forget; I couldn't block facebook because she disabled her facebook page when I did the original exposure. She re-enabled her account today.

She basically left a message to say that she misses me and loves me and she agrees to every one of my conditions. She went on and on like this, but I DO NOT BELIEVE one bit of it. I want to see actions, not just words. I didn't reply; I just blocked her on facebook too now.

*sigh* Will the rollercoaster never end?

Did you see my post about your IM?

Hi BH,
I had seen that link before; originally I had talked to my IM about her role, with my points coming from what I remembered from the link.

Today I just e-mailed my IM the link. Probably easier for her to just read it directly. Thanks!

"Living well is the best revenge." -- George Herbert

It is amazing to me that your wife still thinks only of herself. She is no where near ready to work toward recovery, as evidenced by the fact that:

She shows NO concern for you and your well being AT ALL. Asking your IM only about whether you will really divorce her this time. In other words...do you think he will actually stand up for himself this time, or do you think I can continue to rip his heart out and get away with it? No concern for the ways you are being tortured by her actions, just concern for her ability to get away with it.

And evidenced by the fact that she is refusing to use your IM. You have given your IM the conditions, and instruction to make sure your WW is taking ACTION and not just using words to say she will meet your conditions. Since she has no intention of actually taking action, and just wants to gaslight you to manipulate you and does not want the IM to be a roadblock to that effort, she goes through FB instead.

I hope you see your WW's incredible amount of self serving disrespect toward you, and don't get hung up on this "I miss you and love you..." mumbo jumbo.

She can't even use your IM, yet she is willing to follow the rest of your much more difficult conditions for recovery? Not a chance.

Yes its always so, unfortunately.

If they bypass the very easy step of going through the IM it's ALWAYS because they believe the BS can become a pushover with the right words of manipulation.

If she loved you and missed you, you know what she'd do? Tell the IM she's on board with whatever it takes, NC letter, poly appointment and post nup in hand.

Jah, you're doing good standing up for yourself.
My wife also refused to text the IM and contacted me directly.
I accepted her "willingness to end the affair and work in our marriage" but as soon as she was back she REFUSED to follow the MB recovery plan.

The requirements that you enforce now are like a refiners fire. If she wants to end her affair and work on your marriage she must be willing to cooperate. Otherwise there is no marriage.

Keep up the good job

Will the rollercoaster never end?

From the hundreds (thousands?) of us here who have ridden versions of the ride you are on, the answer is "Yes!"

Two things to bear in mind, my friend:

1) Your ride will be shorter the better you are able to institute a Plan B that is unassailable. In other words, if you want off the ride, don't accept another ticket!
2) Unlike traditional roller-coasters, this one will not let you off at the place you got on. Acknowledge and accept that the arc (vector?) of your life will be different, and embrace that change.

You seem in a much better place since mid-June. Work the program, use the resources here, and remember at all times:

EYES ALWAYS ON THE PRIZE!

Thank you everyone for your support. It is getting easier to deal with issues like this; and posting it here definitely holds me accountable for keeping plan B in the dark. Thank you everyone for holding me accountable!

MSS - love that quote. "Living well is the best revenge."

UW - No, I don't get hung up on this "I miss you and love you" crap. All lies. I need actions, not words.

IG - Post-nup? I'm going to read about it; it's not on my condition list actually, but I can always add it.

HDW - Thanks for the support

NG - Lots of great words of words of wisdom there! That's right, "Eyes on the prize!"

Thanks for sticking with me, everyone. I read through my entire thread from time to time, and boy, there was alot of 2x4's and arguing that went on at first. I was pretty stubborn.

Some posters have been more stubborn and received more 2x4's than you. Stick with the MB plan no matter if your departure point is personal or marital recovery. 30ish pages before plane b is better than a poster who 200 pages before went she went into plan b. I received lots of 2x4's and think i made someone run out his nitro pills.

I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone showed up here as a newbie without getting some kind of a beat down from the vets.

You think you're joining a carey sharey lets-hug-out-the-pain forum - and lo and behold, its a bootcamp!

So glad it is though. I was such a whiney, foggy little betrayed! I'm happy it was drilled out of me so I could lob some grenades at the affair.

Hello everyone,
As I go through my divorce paperwork, I casually asked my lawyer if I could actually sue this OM. He said yes. It's called Alienation of Affection, and only a few states do still recognize it: Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. (Alright Hawaii!)

He said it's pretty worthless, nobody really does it anymore, and very rarely does the plaintiff get any money cause it's difficult to prove. I read up online about it, and it says that almost always it's settled out of court with arbitration. But the threat of dragging a case through public court is enough, given the humiliation for the defendant.

I know I'm in plan B, which means this would definitely INCREASE my stress since everything would be out in the open, but I thought this might make very interesting conversation! Anyone heard of it before, or seen it used? I'm not going to obsess over trying it, but I was wondering what you all thought.

That would be awesome! Dr Harley is very much an advocate of such lawsuits. I would definitely pursue it.

I'm thinking of suing for adultery because in NY State, adultery is still illegal. It's a class B misdemeanor and there is a fine and jail time. Just to be a b****

i think y'all should use whatever legal ramifications you have available to you! you are very lucky to have such opportunities. please do so, thinking of all the BSs who have no such remedy. star was going to do this...i don't think she's posted about it yet (the filing); i'll have to catch up with her thread. talk about consequences!

Let me ask you this. Should it be a threat, as in part of my exposure? Should I threaten my wife too? I'm gonna have to come out of plan B for all this.

I can have my lawyer just contact him directly, making my threat very credible. And with him being a grad student and me being a physician, I doubt he can finance a lawyer himself, and if he did, he would just be dragging his own name through the mud.

I would like it to go something like this: if you do not cut all contact with [WS] immediately, [BH] will be filing a lawsuit of Alienation of Affection, legal in seven states including Hawaii. This means a subpena may be used to force your testimony in a public court, your phone, email, and computer records may be turned over for review, and all evidence will become public record.

If I did file, I doubt he would have any money to pay me. But I don't care about that, of course, I just want to ruin his finances, ruin his name, and stop his relationship with my wife 100%. I'm drooling at the thought of all this.

But then again, I exposed him to all his friend, family, workmates, and mommy and daddy. Isn't that worse?

Have you read rainysweet's thread?

She is currently filing an A of A case and she's divorced from her WXH.
rainysweet's thread

I woul encourage you to call the radio show and ask dr Harley.
I wouldn't encourage you to sue your wife's affair partner. To what end? Satisfy your own quest for revenge?
This is her third affair in 3 years that you KNOW about. How many don't you know about?
I don't think exposing him will mean anything to her. She's a serial cheater and this guy isn't the "love of her life" in her mind. ( well maybe he is for a short while but she can and likely will move on to another man.

As for his money, you don't know what he is worth. He is a grad student? Is his grandma a millionaire? Is his uncle an attorney? The only person that would benefit from this revenge is your attorney.

You are doing a GREAT job of forcing your wife to face the natural consequences of her actions. I think filing a lawsuit against this guy would just be a ways of miny a time.

Should it be a threat, as in part of my exposure?

Oh, dear. I thought we got rid of that doubt-filled, second-guessing version of JAH, with the following acknowledgement:

Thanks for sticking with me, everyone. I read through my entire thread from time to time, and boy, there was alot of 2x4's and arguing that went on at first. I was pretty stubborn.

Bring the hammer down, my friend. Instead of worrying about what you should DO, let him worry about how to react to what you've DONE.

jah, Dr Harley is an advocate of lawsuits in the case of adultery so there is no reason write him. It is a simple cut and dry issue and he doesn't need to be bothered with something that is basic common sense. Suing the OM for A of A is a great idea because it will help him learn his lesson. Maybe he will not do this to the next married woman he runs across. It will, for sure, run him off from your wife.

And you should not threaten him, just do it. You do not need to come out of Plan B to file an alienation of affection suit.

jah,

Yes,I am outside of US,to answer your post on my thread.I wrote to Dr Harley about suing OM for adultery and he strongly recommends it.He said the threat of a lawsuit usually ends the affair. It generally teaches the person that the law is there to obey. He has counseled many couples in my situation before the law in their state was thrown out. In every case, it ended the affair and never had to go to court.

jah, jah, jah, have you learned nothing yet? you DO NOT THREATEN. you ACT. you do not come out of plan b. you have a lawyer.

threats are weak. actions are strong. whether you decide to do it (a of a, and it was rainy, not star) or not is irrelevant - this goes for everything you do! action, not threats! repeat after me: threats are weakness. actions are strength. repeat as necessary (when you're second guessing yourself. STOP THAT!)

Hmmmm . . . I think I need to restate myself here. I'm not thinking of threatening, that's weak. If I'm learning anything here, it's that words are weak.

My wife's words are weak (saying over and over, "I accept your conditions"). I want actions, not just promises.

I'm not going to write a letter to my wife, "I'm really, really going to divorce you this time." I'm just doing it; she'll have the papers right there in front of her.

So okay, same with this. I was not going to contact this guy directly to threaten him. Initially, I thought I'd have my lawyer threaten him. But okay, I'm just going straight on and I'm going to just have my lawyer contact this OM and say that I am suing him, end of story.

I knew there was another 2x4 lying around.

lol. don't have lawyer contact to say. just serve the papers, if you're going to do that.

Hehe, okay. So that's where the saying comes from, "You got served!" (meaning you got beat so bad you can't do anything about it).

Well, I finished the initial paperwork for divorce. There are so many steps; it seems like filing for marriage is 10x simpler and faster than for divorce. Probably a good thing, I guess.

So anyways, the initial paperwork has been sent, and shortly my wife will be 'served'.

Sounds good, jah. About the Alienation of Affection...I think the biggest thing (and I'm sure you'll talk to your attorney about this) is whether you can prove it regarding this particular OM. If I remember correctly, wasn't this third affair an EA? Do you have any proof of physical affair? That's what I would ask my lawyer...what do I need to have to prove A of A, and is x information sufficient? You don't want to waste your time and energy if there isn't enough proof.

Glad to see your plan b is going well, I'm sure the divorce paperwork will feel good in the end.

Thanks JV. I'll definitely ask my lawyer.

The only proof I have of physical affair is my wife's admission, unfortunately. The rest is a bunch of e-mails, phone records, and texts, all of which does not mention a PA specifically.

But from what I read, you don't have to prove that; just showing that the OM interference destroyed the marriage is enough. And really, I just want the guy 'served' the paperwork that I'm suing him; if he actually takes this to court and he or his lawyer defends himself successfully, that's fine as the whole point is dragging this out into the public for his humiliation.

Wow jah, Plan B has sure turned the tide. Filing A of A?

Wild horses wouldn't have stopped me for standing up against the A and the OW. Especially in Plan B, lob the grenade at the affair / OM and then continue on behind the Plan B shield.

I think I may have stolen that from Indie??? Someone on here posted it, and it stuck with me.

Glad to hear you are sounding so much stronger and starting to think more about yourself. Know that there will be lows in Plan B, but do something nice for yourself, process it and come here for support.

Yes I have said that! It's what I would love to do myself, too. Why don't we have A of A in the UK! Grrrr.

And in Aus... lets make it a worldwide attack on affairs and OW / OM!

*Cautious optimism*

Guess what, everyone. My wife received the initial paperwork for divorce today (the one that basically requires her signature saying she got my initial divorce filing and if she agrees or not with my initial division of property). Within four hours, she not only accepted all my conditions, but she is doing something this time.

She gave my IM her gmail, yahoo, skype, facebook, university, and yahoo messanger passwords. I checked them all and they are correct.

She drafted a NO CONTACT letter that goes like this:

Hi OM,
I am sorry but I realize that I do still love my husband, I still miss him and I don�t want to divorce him. I would like to try and work on the marriage again. I have hurt BS so badly and yet he still loves me and wants to work on the marriage. So I want to try and work on the marriage again too. I would feel very guilty and regret later if I give up and not give it another try. This also means that I will have to cut contact with you for life. So please do not contact me again. What I did with you was wrong. If I really liked you and wanted to have a relationship with you, at least I should have waited until I get a divorce and have a time for myself first before I got into another relationship. Please forgive me.

Sincerely,
WW

She told my IM that she tried to make the polygraph test appointment, but they were already closed. She will do it first thing tomorrow morning.

She sent this message to my IM:

Dear IM,
I hope I can still have another chance to work on the marriage with BS again. I do still love BS and miss him and I want to give this marriage another try. I hope that BS and I can fall in love with each other again.

Here's a sample No Contact letter from the Notable Posts section. Short and sweet. No apologies.

"OM,
I want you to know that out of respect and love for my husband, I have come to realize that I must never see or talk with you again. My relationship with you was a cruel indulgence that H did not deserve. While I cannot completely repay H for the pain I have caused him, I will do my best to become the wife he has been missing. I care a great deal for my husband and I would not want to do anything to risk his happiness. I will not make any further contact with you and I do not want you to make any contact with me. Please respect my desire to end our relationship."

That's all she needs to tell OM.

Yes, ask her to write the proper MB approved version. Her one is a bit too 'please understand why' instead of 'please leave me the hell alone'

However I must say, she isnt too far off. For a WW, I mean. Much of her letter seems fog-free apart from the silly 'please forgive me of course' (forgive me for acting like an honourable married woman! Ha!)

But not too bad. I've seen a lot of 'Our love will last through the ages' and 'We'll always have Paris' in wayward-version NC letters, so at least there's none of that.

[/color]

Those words are DISRESPECTFUL to you and should be taken out. Asking that sack of **** to "forgive" her and telling him she likes him is a slap in your face.

Will she be going to the same college as the OM? Because if she is, then that would be deal breaker. She can't go anywhere near him.


A serial cheater should not have facebook so I would ask her to delete that.

I would also find out what she has done with the OM since she has been back in town. Ask her to write out the details of her affair since she has been back.

I would take it very slow, jah. Talk is cheap with a WS. Give her a chance to prove her faithfulness while she stays somewhere else. I would have the IM send her something like this:

jah is considering your offer but has to ensure that he will never be subjected to your unfaithfulness again. He needs you to write out your plan to protect him from an affair in the future. He has to have proof this will never happen again and when you can demonstrate faithful behavior over a period of time, he will consider reconciliation.

In the meantime, he requests that:

1. delete facebook entirely since it is a breeding ground for affairs

2. quit your school since the OM is there

3. take out these words in your no contact letter to the OM:

"If I really liked you and wanted to have a relationship with you, at least I should have waited until I get a divorce and have a time for myself first before I got into another relationship. Please forgive me."

This is very disrespectful to jah. This letter is meant to be a good will gesture to jah and these words are offensive. The letter should be sent by both and you and jah together.

My initial thought is that I am happy that my divorce papers drove her to take action. I suppose it could still be that she ran out of money and couldn't support herself anymore, but seems that the divorce papers is what did it. As in she didn't think I would actually file.

I need to think carefully what the next plan of action is for my specific situation. I think in most affairs, as soon as recovery starts taking place, the WS comes back to live with the BS, and they start working on recovery. But for me, I'm not sure that's what I want.

I was thinking of having my wife stay with a friend outside the apartment still. I'm not giving her the apartment key. I want my wife to prove a little more that she is serious about all this, and my conditions. But I guess I am going to have to break the 'no contact' of plan B now.

Before coming back to the apartment, I was thinking of doing the polygraph first, to get more of the truth in the open. Can anyone give me advice on questions to ask? The goals as I can see are to question my wife beforehand then see if the story matches up. To see if there are other men she was thinking of or already did have an affair with. To see what other trigger or avenues she might be using to have affairs. And other stuff, like if she has a history of sexual abuse (including as a child), if she has an alcohol problem (don't think so based on my history of her, but need to be sure).

Whats the best way to send the no-contact letter? I was going to mail one, plant on at the OM's door, and e-mail him the letter. I think what my wife wrote is acceptable (minus ML suggestion).

I know my wife has this 'straight and narrow path' to prove herself, and so I want to make sure I give her that chance without being an 'enabler' and just letting her back into my life.

My conditions again:
1. End all contact with the OM for life. This involves writing a "No Contact" letter (written by and approved by me)
2. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
3. Complete transparency (no hiding anything) - cell phone, email, facebook, passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about you affair<s> � I will ask you take a polygraph test.
6. Delete all non-relative male friends from your facebook account; you also cannot be on facebook at any time unless we are together.
7. Move to XXX for a year (This is my hometown island in Hawaii). This is to get you away from the university (in Oahu) and from the OM while we work on our marriage.
8. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

Of course, my conditions are not static and I have others, like STD testing, going to church to ask for forgiveness, sending messages to all her friends and family asking for forgiveness, etc. But these were the initial ones I thought most important.

Also, I plan to do the full Marriage Builders Online Program. But I don't think we should start on that immediately; my wife needs to prove herself a little bit more. Should I start her off with SAA to read?

This is why I wanted you to file for divorce. After 3 affairs, your wife believed you would never do anything to stop her. NOW she knows you will.

I would STRONGLY ADVISE THAT YOU DO NOT DROP THIS DIVORCE ACTION! She will think that her overture will cause you to drop the divorce and may be making the offer only to get you to drop it. You protect yourself and guage her sincerity by telling her that you won't drop the divorce until she actually DEMONSTRATES faithful behavior over a period of time. Tell her you must be convinced - not by words, but by actions - over a period of time.

That will ensure her sincerity.

Just delete Facebook altogether. It is too big a temptation and too big a risk to have around.

Oh yes, I completely agree. My lawyer said even if everything goes through smoothly, it would take about two months. Otherwise, up to a year or more. So there's no reason to drop the divorce.

Jah, if the OM is at her university then she shouldnt set foot there again. Ever. I like your plan very much! I agree you should keep her out. And I would not give her any money until she becomes part of the marriage. She does not deserve any marital benefits until she behaves like a married person.

I am confused by the above paragraph. She is not triggered by anything. She is out chasing men and has the means and the opportunity. Just remove the means and the opportunity and you will be fine. Make it impossible for her to carry on a secret second life. Lets just accept that she chases men and deal with it. Don't even ask her about triggers, but ask her why she is out chasing men.

And don't bring up childhood issues, it has nothing to do with the present.

I would drag it out for about 6 months if I were you. Any halfwit WW could play the game for 2 months and then go back to the status quo. If she has to play the game for 6 months, by that time she will have changed her habits and be in love with you anyway.

I would start immediately on this!

I was thinking of this, but after almost four years of schooling she is a semester away from finishing her degree. I think it's reasonable to pull her out from school, in fact pull her away from the entire island for a whole year while we work on our marriage, then come back and let her finish that one semester. This other island is where my entire family lives.

So she can just resume the affair later?

Okay, I have to get ready for work. I'll check back with more updates later. I still only have cautious optimism, but at least this is a start. I am going to order the online MB when I get back home.

I WANT TO THANK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU FOR HELPING ME GET TO THIS POINT. Hopefully all those 2x4's will prepare me as we transition to recovery.

Jah,

Or just divorce her now, let her finish her degree, then a year from now, or whatever, administer the polygraph to determine if she remained true. At that time consider remarriage.

God Bless
Gamma

The FIRST step in recovering from an affair is to never see the OP again. You are proposing breaking that rule in a year.

Listen to this link: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=652

Quick clarification; this OM is in a different department AND different college as where my WW is at currently. They didn't meet at school, but at a party.

Then why do you feel the need to move away from the University for a year?

Is this a different college inside the same University?

Different department, different college, different campus. Same University. Actually, all the public colleges in Hawaii (there are six) fall under the same university.

Jah,

But really it's the lifestyle encouraged by being at college that is another issue. It might be OK for a 20 year old, but not a 28 year old who is hot and has the mind of a 20 year old.

God Bless
Gamma

Exactly.

I think Dr Harley says in one of his letters in the Q&A columns that college is one of the best opportunities you will have to meet potential dates, etc.

jah, you need to change your entire outlook on lifestyle. Your serial cheating WW is the type of person who probably can't even take her car to get an oil change by herself anymore...nevermind be in a college setting.

It would be a good sign of her seriousness if she were to agree to give it up.

Other options, like home study, can be explored later.

For now lets see if she's willing to do 'whatever it takes'

My conditions again:
1. End all contact with the OM for life. This involves writing a "No Contact" letter (written by and approved by me)
2. No more nights apart or going out without each other.
3. Complete transparency (no hiding anything) - cell phone, email, facebook, passwords, etc. You give me access to everything.
4. No more opposite sex friendships
5. Complete honesty about you affair<s> � I will ask you take a polygraph test.
6. Delete all non-relative male friends from your facebook account; you also cannot be on facebook at any time unless we are together.
7. Move to XXX for a year (This is my hometown island in Hawaii). This is to get you away from the university (in Oahu) and from the OM while we work on our marriage.
8. Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

Uhh, you forgot:
9. Drawing up and filing a complete, ironclad (to jah's lawyer's view) post-nup agreement stating WW's next affair will result in her leaving forever with nothing but a suitcase. (Her willingness/reluctance to agree to this one will indicate if she loves YOU or your bank account!)

Yes, that's true. But there has to be a balance here. I could lock my wife up in the house every day and that would be a condition to keep her from cheating, but that's not reasonable. Like I said, OM at different college, different campus. Maybe when the time comes I'll sit with my WW in each of her classes if I have to.

But like other's have said, lets see how the first few days and then months of recover goes, let alone a whole year away from college, before making any decisions on her return. We are talking about MAYBE returning to college a whole year from now.


Oh yes, that will certainly be a condition. I already had it in my mind to discuss this with my lawyer (or do I talk to my accountant?) In any case, I have made up my mind that when I bring that topic up, if my WW wavers even a bit, then it's straight to plan divorce and out of recovery for good.

So as I said, my wife gave me all passwords, drew up the no contact letter, and made the polygraph appointment.

I told my IM I need one more thing before coming out of plan B; I want my wife to come up with her own plan/conditions (to be added to mine) regarding working on our marriage. I don't want this whole exercise to be a passive activity; I want my wife to have an active role in coming up with her own ideas on how to stop her affair, prevent future ones, and make our marriage stronger.

I want to see how serious she is. Once I get her plan, we'll start meeting again to work on the marriage.

Language such as "need to find a balance" or "gotta have SOME level of trust" is red flag language for a BS to be using, especially when the WS is a multi time offender such as your WW. Nobody said anything about locking your wife up but again the fact that you would describe EPs that way is concerning...

If you want to cut corners, that's your business but I am here to tell you what Dr Harley's plan is for recovering a marriage with a serial cheater, super duper EPs + creating a lifestyle where cheating would be impossible for your W by eliminating opportunity.

What do you mean "Maybe when the time comes I'll sit with my WW in each of her classes if I have to"? Do you think she might be cured of her serial cheating in the next year? And that you will somehow be able to tell at that time whether she still needs to follow EPs and live a lifestyle that makes cheating difficult if not impossible?

SQ - Okay, point taken. I'll just make the decision now then: the only way my wife can go back to finish her one semester is if I sit with her through each of her classes. I'm going to try and eliminate 'maybe' and 'if' from my vocabulary.

I just got a call this afternoon confirming that my wife made the polygraph testing. The tester called to introduce himself, and tell me how it works. I thought I would be present, but he said I will not. He wanted me to give him a thorough summary of the situation, what parts I know to be true, and which are suspicions, and what specific questions to ask. He said he did polygraph testing for infidelity before. He is a retired but trained FBI agent. Does that all sound about right?

This afternoon I am going to meet up with my wife and just talk; find out about what happened in the past week, lay down the plan, get details on the affair. I feel very calm right now, but the wall of plan B is about to come down. I need to be assertive and rational; I know I can do it.

Oh, quick question. As I get the information and questions to my polygraph tester, does anyone have a link to what kinds of questions to ask? I know it's to find out about more affairs, to get the facts about the current affair, etc. I realize he can ask "Did you have an affair with so-and-so", but is it also a fair question to say, "Did you ever think of having an affair with so-and-so". With the idea that if she says yes, then we cut contact with this person forever.

I would be very appreciative if anyone can point me to some resources on polygraph testing.

You're probably a little giddy right now, Jah because it 'appears' you've won this round.

The thing is, we've seen people who thought they'd recovered, come back 3/5/10 years later, betrayed yet again. This seems to happen most often with the serial cheaters.

So before you go getting all happy and hopeful, you need to prepare to watch your own boundaries around your WW who no doubt, is incredibly charming and knows exactly what to say to get what she wants.

It's still possible that you might decide you don't want to reconcile. The reason people here were so immediate in saying if it were them, they would just get a divorce is because we know how hard it is to recover and that a serial cheater (3 years into the marriage, 3 affairs?) is going to be super hard.

So just make sure you're keeping that bar high. She has A LOT of work to do and this is just the very beginning.

Jah, Susie Q is very experienced in the matter of serial cheats and her warning must be considered soberly.

A one-time cheat is addicted to the PERSON and must avoid any and all contact with that PERSON and any triggers.

A serial cheat is addicted to the lifestyle, having the opportunity to meet men, flirting and cheap attention.

She could get that hit of her addiction at a gas station or store and she would fall off the wagon if she did that. That means an FR for you, which is more painful than the main affair.

I personally would recover with a one-time cheat but not a serial cheat, simply because of the work involved in keeping them in line.

Some people make it work though.

You have to decide if that's the kind of marriage you want.

It might be worth calling Dr H on his show or listening to his shows on serial cheats.

Jah,

You will have to speak with the polgraph operator, but in thinking what questions I would want asked of my W.

(1) Did you have any physical sexual contact with anyone, while you were dating or married to G?

"would cover all forms of sexual contact oral/vaginal/anal/mutual masterbation/lesbian/"

2) Did you reach orgasm without G,

"would cover phone sex, use of toys, masterbation"

3) Did you have emotional affairs or fantasies about someone other than G while you were married/dating?

4) Are you attracted to G?

God Bless
Gamma

wow, jah, what a turn of events. please, please be very careful at this entry point to recovery. as indie said, retraining a serial cheat is mammoth work. you need to set the bar extraordinarily high and keep it there. have you made an appt w/the harleys?

you thought plan b was hard? recovery is super-hard, because it needs to be *sustained,* and both people need to do the work. marathon, right?

be very careful you don't chuck all your plan-b-for-me self-care and race back into WWs arms. do keep the divorce ongoing at this point. make sure she meets your EPs.

should your recovery begin, i'm going to bow out, because i have no experience with a WW, and they are so different from a WH. i will check in on you though and see how you're going.

cheers.

Thanks everyone for your continued support. The general recurring thought that keeps coming back is that I need to be careful, keep my boundaries high, and make sure my EP's are met.

It's interesting that as I'm transitioning from 'plan A & B' to recovery, so is the transition of those that are posting. I'm sure it's because some are more experienced with recovery, others more experienced with exposure and plan B. In any case, thank you for following along with me, I do look forward to continued advice. Every time I re-read my thread, I see how hard-headed I was, and still am, and I know that more 2x4's will be coming.

I'm also noticing new acronyms. What is FR? "That means an FR for you, which is more painful than the main affair.". What is 'G'? Sorry, but it's not on that acronym page.

I do realize that recovery is going to be even harder than exposure, harder than plan B. I was just starting to get comfortable on day 10 of plan B, and now I get hit with the recovery phase. I remember NG saying that this rollercoaster is different from other rollercoasters because I will end up in a different place. That's what I realize; there's going to have to be huge radical changes in my wife, and also changes in me in not being an enabler or doormat any more.

FR = false recovery. they suck.

G = Gamma's first inital.

Here it is.

From here Choosing the Right One to Marry

Not sure if this has been linked? I think it is a great read and education on what to avoid, and what to look for... from those who have the experience:
False Recovery

And jah... I really hope this is not a FR for you.

I'm impressed by how you are using the MB advice and plans though.

Here.
Polygraph Testing

Thanks for the support everyone, including BH on college/polygraph/FR links. I'm writing my polygraph questions today.

Well, yesterday was the FIRST day of recovery, and major problems already! But not nearly as bad as I had expected.

For those following along, my wife is a serial cheater, and I am the sole provider. So during plan B I cut off finances and kicked her out of the apartment (changed locks). Stayed in plan B for 10 days. The day she received my divorce paperwork, she accepted all my conditions, made the polygraph appointment, gave me access to all passwords, and wrote the 'no contact' letter. However, I have decided to keep filing my divorce (still takes 3 months or so anyways), keep her out of the apartment, and keep finances cut off, as I want her to show genuine efforts on working on our marriage over time rather than just take her back after one day.

Yesterday was the first day together post plan B and in recovery. We went to a quiet park and talked 3 long hours. It was a rollercoaster of emotions for her, but very strangely, I was calm the whole time. I didn't have one break. I told her I will record the whole conversation, so that either she or I could go back if we needed to. I didn't tell her the recording was also if I needed info for the polygrapher. Anyways, I also told her to be honest; that even though she has lied so many times in the past, there's no reason to hide anything anymore and if she wants to start regaining my trust it starts today (I know, there's still a good chance she could be lying regardless, but I have a polygraph date set next week, and as I learned in criminal psychiatry, it takes ALOT of effort to keep up lies that are consistent when days turn to weeks and months)

My wife warned me beforehand that the conversation would get ugly, but I said; how can it get uglier than it already is? Just give me the truth. The first thing I asked was for a detailed day-by-day summary of what she was doing for the first 6 days after coming back from her home country. The first day the OM picked her up from the airport, they went to his apartment, they went out to watch a movie together that night, slept in the same bed (no sex). Next morning he did some schoolwork while my wife hung out with friends. In the afternoon, he was getting ready to leave Hawaii to Cali for 10 days to attend a wedding. They had sex that afternoon before he left. Over the next 4 days, they had two conversations over the phone, where my wife said she didn't want to leave me with divorce, and wanted to work on our marriage. This POSOM tells her, "Well, if you feel for your husband, you should go back to your marriage. But I can't promise I'll be waiting if it doesn't work out. If you wanted to divorce and see where our relationship goes, I can't let you stay at my place in the meantime; our relationship is too new." My wife then goes on to say that that she started having some doubts over this guy. After cutting her off from finances, he never paid for the movie they went together (paid only for himself). The few meals they had together he didn't pay for her (just himself). He wasn't going to let her stay at his apartment. And it seemed like my WW telling him that she was thinking of working on the marriage didn't bother him at all.

Keep in mind here, as I am listening to her, I am *screaming* in my head, wanting to tell my *foggy* wife how stupid she is taking this long to realize all this. But like I said, I kept calm the whole conversation. When she was done, I told her firmly (but calmly), of course he doesn't care for her. He's just using you for sex without the hassle or commitment. He isn't willing to support you obviously, financially or otherwise. And stop agreeing with his reasoning that 'the relationship is too new for you to be staying in my apartment'; he just wants the sex but none of the hassle of you around. I also told my wife, "Has he introduced you to ANY of his friends or relatives?" She said no, and I told her of course he didn't! He knows what he is doing is wrong and it's because I exposed him to everyone so he wont introduce her. There's no way this relationship is going anywhere.

So that got my wife's fog cleared, just a little. The rest of the story about what happened during the plan B wasn't too exciting, since the OM was out of the state. Except for one thing. There is this one male friend of both my wife and I we know fairly well. My wife told me that she spent two evenings with this guy, talking about the whole situation and getting advice and support from him. My wife told me that this guy wants our marriage to work out, and he was supporting my side strongly. I told her that's fine, but as per the agreed conditions, I told her this guy is no longer to be a friend (Rule 3: no male friends). Also, she cannot go out with this guy, even for support (Rule 4: no going out separately), and if we do go out together, she is not to leave my sight to talk to him. My wife was kinda mad about this; she said that this guy supported me, and is like a brother to her. I explained that she does not have boundaries, that I cannot trust that she knows her limits, and so no male friends means exactly that. She agreed. I told my WW that I know she needs support, but she needs to find female friends for that. I also called this guy to confront him, I explained the whole situation, include my wife's past and our agreed conditions, and I told him to stay away from my wife. He agreed with my reasoning and conditions, and that he will avoid my wife, and he restated that he supports our marriage and hope it works out.

I don't know if I can believe any of this about this guy, but that's what polygraphs are for, right?

The other big issue I brought up with my wife was why she waited until she got the divorce papers in hand before agreeing to my conditions to work on our marriage, especially if she was already considering me over the OM. She said that she went to see her psychologist a day after arriving (in addition to her psychologist, we both have our own marriage counselors), where she told him that she was torn between the OM and me. This POSP (stands for POS psychologist) told her that she should take a few days to a week to just think about it and not make any decisions. So that's why my wife said she held out on accepting my conditions. Who know's if I should believe that this is her real reason for holding out. But that POSP needs to go. I gotta find a more pro-marriage counselor for my wife.

So, that's the main parts of our 3 hour long conversation. Now on to some of the issues with the 'recovery'. Even though my wife was out of the fog a little, she was crying as we sent the no-contact letter by e-mail. She doesn't have the OM address so we can't mail it, but we will drop it at his door when he gets back (he has roommates so I can't drop it off now). She still cries alot during the conversation, obviously this OM still means something to her. Going with the policy of radical honesty, I also told my wife I wanted to block this OM from communication. She told me, "Go ahead and do it. You don't have to tell me what you are doing." So I filtered her e-mails (so messages from him gets automatically deleted), and blocked his phone numbers.

One difficulty I'm seeing is that as my wife is crying over this OM and as I am trying to 'win her back' and show my care for her, there are lots of things that I'm doing or did that gets her very upset. She gets very angry still that I exposed her. She is pissed that even though she and I both agreed to work on the marriage, I am still continuing with the divorce paperwork. She is not happy that I am not taking her back into the apartment. She actually AGREES with keeping her cut off with financial support, as she said she wants to find a job so that she can be able to say she is contributing to the marriage finances. But, she is upset because it's going to be even harder to find a job now, since I'm not letting her finish up her one semester to get her degree.

But the biggest problem is a logistical one. Since she is not in our apartment, she is staying with a female friend in her dorm room. Of course, it's impossible to know what is happening there in the dorm; as mentioned before college is a huge breeding ground of OM. I asked my wife if she could stay elsewhere, and she said since she had no finances or a job yet, she can't get a place, and that's the only friend that was willing to take her in.

I feel that having my wife being out of our apartment causes two huge problems: it makes it difficult to strengthen our own relationship, and she is at huge risk in the dorm. It's going to take super snooping to make sure she stays on the 'straight and narrow' while we are separated, and even that might not be enough. So I am wavering on how long to keep her out of the apartment; I feel for all my EP's, having separate living conditions makes almost all my EP's worthless.

So sorry for the long post everyone. It's day one of recovery, after all, and lots of information to share. Comments (and 2x4's) are always welcome.

Jah I think you should schedule an appointment with the Marriahe builders Coaching service.

I don't know what the rest thinks, but I think you should move in together and spend as much time together as possible.

JAH, you have jumped about three chapters in the Recovery Handbook in the last four days.

Now STOP!

You are REACTING to events instead of MASTERING them. Before your little t�te-a-t�te, you should have had clear plans for what the next steps should be.

WW has to live somewhere. Having her live in a shared-dorm environment with a clutch of horned-up college students is probably NOT in your best interest. It's highly unlikely that you'll be able to find a convent to stow her in, so your choices are either at home with you, or in a separate domicile (apartment?) Yes, I know allowing her back home seems like "granting" her a consideration she does not merit, but the advantages (surveillance, proximity) probably outweigh the costs.

You will be proceeding with the poly; she should be arranging for STD screens. Have her in a separate room (sleeping among the ashes went out with central heating, unfortunately), but look at your situation with a higher degree of objectivity, okay?

If it doesn't work, you may re-change the locks; they ain't THAT expensive!

HDW - What is the 'coaching service'? Is that the online MB program? I am doing that, my wife has agreed (she is not reluctant or in strong favor of it. She just says she is willing to do it)

NG - Okay, I do objectively feel that it's better for her to move back. I did have a plan; it's just that yesterday was my first day coming 'out of the dark' with plan B, so it's not like I knew what the whole situation was like. Honestly, since she is willing to go through the MB program, I'd rather just have her at home and we work through it together.

oh jah. how strong you must be to have listed to all that fogbabble! while it's good she was honest with you, it must really hurt that while she was calling you & IM, she was sleeping with this guy. i'm so sorry for your pain.

you have definitely jumped too far ahead without a plan. can i chime in a third vote to contact the coaching center? you can schedule an appt here.

i know it's expensive, but if you drop your two separate MCs, you can afford it. and frankly, it''s worth every penny. plus, it's crisis/recovery focused, not unlimited. you work on your plan, specifically. no sitting around moaning about this or that. it really will be the best money you ever spend. steve (or jennifer) can get you going on a plan asap. the first thing steve will probably tell you is that if you're ready to work on recovery, your WW needs to be at home. but don't do anything until you speak with him, ok? NG gave you some good advice about the residence for WW. think outside the box there. is there a weekly-stay motel nearby? is there an apt free in your bldg?

ideally, she should be at home. as you've seen from your conversation with her, any "free" time away from you results in an instant "get with a guy" mentality. this is very dangerous for you and any recovery. she needs an extensive mental overhaul.

book an appt. that's job 1 for today.