Things have been going perfectly, followingthr MB plan and just building our marriage but tonight we hit a big snag and I would really appreciate some advice as to what to do next.

We have been in real good honest recovery for 3 months but tonight has set me back and made me feel like I'm back in DDay and the affair pain has resurfaced.

We have both been working hard and tonight a family member offered to look after our children so we could go out with some friends to celebrate H birthday. We took this opportunity and arranged to go out for drinks with some friends. I don't drink regularly because I generally don't like the taste of alcohol but tonight I wanted to let go and just have fun and celebrate. H drinks once every couple of months but does not get drunk so we are not alcoholics by any means and this was a very rare night out with a decent and respectful group of good friends.

At one bar/pub we were all sitting together when a couple of girls randomly joined our group, there are a couple of single men in our gorup so they were taking the opportunity to get to know these girls, I was sitting next to my H when one of the stranger girls decided to suddenly get up and park her backside on my H lap. My H did not say or do anything despite seeing my anger he just laughed. I made an excuse to go to the bathroom but took a taxi and came home because I was simply just plain hurt.

I found the whole ordeal so disrespectful and was speechless, I don't know why I didn't speak up or get angry but I know I wanted to keep some dignity and just get out of that situation with some self respect.

I expected my H to tell the girl to get off his lap or even just push her off but instead he just sat there laughing and tried to stroke my back. I pushed his hand off me smiled and excused myself telling evyone in was going to the bathroom. Then just made my way home.

Question is did I do the right thing?
What do I do now?

He has come home in tears apologising and begging for forgiveness, I feel numb and feel like the A wound has been reopened. ( to add insult to injury the girl looked like his OW).

Everything else a part from this incident has been truly wonderful. So I really really don't know what to do. Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks

NB28,

Do you and your H have well-defined extraordinary precautions? If so, what do they include? In our case, my H does not drink any alcohol if I am not there. If we are out, H limits his alcohol to one drink. He does not joke around with women. These are some of our examples.

I think you can deal with this by writing very clear guidelines for extraordinary precautions. The bottom line is to not do anything that would not meet the approval of the other spouse.

AM

I can just imagine how that made you feel. Be VERY clear with your DH what you expect in these situations. If this happened to us, I would expect my H to politely tell her he is not available.

You need to make him understand that his doing nothing triggered you. He may have thought the situation was funny, based on your response. Maybe if you had looked at him, shaking your head, he would realize this was not okay. Or asked him if you could speak with him in private if he didn't get the hint.

You are doing great. Triggers will happen but if you are both doing the work, you will fully recover.

Good luck and God bless.

Girl it was time for you to man up and say: bee otch get off that is my lap while simultaneously giving the death look to her, while simultaneously giving your WH a biff on the side of his head for letting her stay there.

And don't you tell you couldn't of done all this when all you women folk go around throwin' in our faces about how superior you girls are to us when it comes to multi tasking.

Instead you wussed out and snuck home.

You better not plan W any more.

Got that?

I'm with TheRoad. You made a mistake in slinking off, leaving your H with some ho ON HIS LAP. That's just begging for trouble. Apologize for your ineffective way of dealing with it, assure him that it will NEVER happen again (you will swiftly, deftly, and perhaps embarrassingly deal with it on the spot), and agree to leave, together, at the first sign of inappropriate behavior in the future.

You might think of no longer hanging out with single people. Many of them have no respect for marriage (not all, of course).

Now that we've got what you need to do out of the way, he needs to tighten up those boundaries. If he thought that was funny at all, he is still wayward-thinking.

Does your H wear his wedding ring?

If not the girls may have thought he was with the single guys who had invited them over...

Regardless, even if your H had been single that womans' behaviour was that of a tramp.

If he was wearing his ring...

I'm with those saying you need to defend your turf...

and also that you ARE correct in that your H should have PROTECTED YOU and immediately got up and not allowed it to continue even one second longer.

He could have dealt with it in a light hearted way by saying "I'm afraid of her...and you better be too!" and put his arms around you.

Both H and W's need to not be afraid to stand up for themselves AND their spouses and the spouse needs to show they don't want anyone else touching their spouse.

God bless.

Jim

Armymama

As pert of my conditions of embarking on marital recovery as opposed to just giving up and going to plan B is that H had to adhere to clear boundries and EP.

Here is the full list he agreed to and since we have been in full recovery I agree to adhere to it also but in relevance to my behaviour with males although I have always adhered to them regardless.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Don�t seek admiration from anyone else, especially females

Don�t allow distractions from interfering with relationship recovery

Make new acquaintances aware of wife and family

Communicate all/any questionable contact with women however minor

Don�t hide anything from wife

Don�t censor myself, if I have doubt that something will upset her TELL HER

Don�t compliment any other females

Don�t criticise or allow wife to be criticised by another female

Don�t allow/condone any inappropriate contact with females I.e. texts/calls/physical contact/comments

Don�t be a shoulder to cry on or attempt to comfort a female inappropriately

Avoid contact with women you find attractive

Don�t make promises you are not a 100% sure I can keep

Don�t fall for women�s character without questioning it first. Look for hidden agendas especially work related

Don�t step on wife or family to protect yourself from criticism

Don�t lie to my wife

Don�t tell wife �I don�t love you� �Not in love with you� unless I mean it and are prepared to end our marriage.

Don�t assume you know what wife�s reaction/thoughts/feeling would be before telling her something.

Don�t underestimate pain/suffering/damage caused by affair

Don�t fail to instigate difficult conversations because of worry or time restraints

Don�t be afraid to �have a go� its better to get something wrong than to do nothing at all when meeting her needs

Don�t take own failings/guilt/resentment out on wife

Don�t forget family exist when away from them

Don�t masturbate to other women pictures etc

No more night away from wife

No drinking while away from wife

No Facebook friendships with any women wife does not personally know.

Access to all passwords and emails and phone at all times.

Do not remove or tamper with Key logger on any of our PCs.

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


So in conclusion H broke the EP's that he is fully aware of and agreed to practice in order to achieve marital recovery. What should the reasonable consequences to braking and EP should be?

He is remorseful and I would like to move on from this however I don t know how and what to do. Do I carry on being angry? sad? do I just forgive him and move on considering his great commitment to the marriage for the past 3 months?

Mystymars

I did let him know it was not acceptable behaviour, I did explain and he fully understands that what he did is wrong and that behaviour like this is dangerous to our marriage recovery and makes me not only trigger but feel unsafe being with him.

His response is that he did not have the kahunas to tell this girl to get off his lap for fear of embarassment (his and hers not mine by the way). He felt that as she had sat on his lap to talk to a friend sitting next to him this isnt as bad as she was not flirting or talking to him she was just using him as a chair, I disagree with this and explained had the situations been reversed he would not have been happy with me and he agrees with that statement.

Not only DID I give him daggers and angry stares while this was happening I also removed his hand from my back as a sign of disapproval, during this whole incident he was FULLY aware I was angry.

and he was laughing in a nervous way rather than an enjoyment way, he really whimped out of protecting our EPs for the sake of some embarassment.

So what was your condition that was made if he was to break an EP?

The Road/CWMI

I can assure you I am more than capable of dragging the little HO off his lap and turning her into mince meat and then giving him a good old black eye to boot but I chose to just walk away because for some reason I genuinley thought it was the right thing to do I am still undecided weather this was the right thing to do.

The girl was fully aware he was my H, she was introduced to the group and one of the single men clearly stated this is my dear friend x and his lovely W x. She also noticed my anger and moved away soon after this incident and apologised stating that she has a Boyfriend she loves very much etc. I left after she got off his lap.

I ignored her and made my way out. To me she was just a little drunk girl with no sense of how to behave appropriately and has not made any vowes nor has she made any commitments to me. The person I am disappointed in is my H he committed to the EP's he allowed something wrong to happen and failed to protect me.

I wanted to behave like a lady, I wanted to keep some self respect and take myself out of harms way so I went home, the girl knew he was married to me and he was sitting right next to me no words could have made the situation clarer without causing a full brawl in the middle of the Bar.

The good friends we were out with were a mix of other couples and a few single men who were school friends with H and it was his birthday outing so they were invited but they were also very surprised and disappointed with H and shocked at his behaviour so I consider them to be good people although they did invite the girls into our group for their own entertainment they also expected my H to have enough guts to rebuff unwanted attention and he did not so the onus is again on him and only him.


After so many false recoveries and marital struggles after his A I was really looking forward to seeing him protect our marriage and see our EPs in action so sad he couldnt do the basic protection.

Maybe I should take responsibility too for not being aggressive enough with my response at the time this was happening but I genuinly thought my response was dignified. I guess I should put my dignity on the back burner when im fighting for recovery.

Brain

this is the big question I have.

I think another full A would lead to full quick unequivical Divorce (I can just about forgive the first A due to both of us being unaware of MB and how to build and maintain a good marriage but as he is fully aware of how an A works there is no excuse on this planet that would make me want to stay with him if he betrayed me again plus I personally find that once the WS is aware of MB and they have an A this makes the A fighting tools redundant to a point due to the WS knowing all about exposure plan A and Plan B etc).

Persistent dishonesty and inappropriate contact with other women would automatically lead to a huge LB and love bank withdrawals.

So if the love bank is low this would mean going in the red and again heading for Divorce, but as the love bank is nice and full right now due to really good progress on recovery and meeting ENs and UA time its hard to judge what to do and thats why im here asking you guys.

What are reasonable consequences to broken EP's??

Well Dr. Harley told me if he can not make me feel safe in our marriage and can't hold to the EP's I've given him to go into Plan B.

Does he make you feel safe in this marriage? I know there have been multiple affairs and FR are you prepared for this again?

I see you once coached with Steve. Can you do this again?

What about emailing the radio show and asking Dr.H himself?

I'm sorry I know how it feels when they don't hold up to their end of the marriage.

I also think whatever reasonable consequences you give him would be reasonable.

Hey Brain

I did coaching with Steve and it went really well and I would totally reccomend him to everyone. He got my H on board when he was still really foggy but unfortunately i cant currently afford the fees for any more coaching with him. I did approach a UK MC but she was totally useless so I have had to let her go.

I will try to email the radio show tomorrow to see what Dr H has to say although I am dreading doing it because its like talking to someone you really admire its quite intimidating.

The only good thing about going through FRs is that you then know when you are in real recovery and I can really say we are in recovery and this has been the first incident in 3 months so I want to tackle it correctly.

Affair wise he had one PA and 3 online EA's in 11 years of marriage so quite alot for my liking. The PA was the last A he had and we then found MB and here we are.

any ideas of on the consequences part? he is petrified that i intend on leaving him and he has been quite down because i am loosing weight and looking after myself.
I dont want to leave him but beleive that there should be a consequence to this behaviour. what to do is where im stuck

Does he understand what boundaries are?

I would definitely email the radio show and the Harley's are wonderful. I wasn't intimidated by them at all. You can also email your question and then they can read it and answer on the radio without you having to talk to them, if you'd prefer. Or better yet how about he write the email to the Harleys and ask them?

His actions are what you have to watch. If you feel his actions are worthy then you know.

What did he say when you told him that you don't feel safe in the marriage?

What is he going to do for you from this experience?

What consequences do you want to give him?

Aslo have you read this article, by Dr. H, about rules that guide good habits?
Rules that Guide Good Habits

Could he still be in his old habits?

What about having him post on the forum as one of your consequences for this? Then he could really get some help from others?

NB - I say it is time for you to enter Plan B ASAP and cut this guy loose ... this has been a recurring pattern for years ... your recovery has been limping along and nothing is getting better.

I say Plan B with some strong conditions to remain married and if your WH won't do it then you need to divorce him.

He is still wayward and has spent years not caring about you.

Brain you are a genius I really love the idea of him posting here as a consequence of him braking the EPs.

He does fully understand what EPs are, he first found out about them when we were coaching with steve and totally understood however he has real personal issues that tend to get in the way like insecurities and lack of confidence to do the right thing at times, he is way too concerned with people's opinion of him.

I will post more later the hangover from last night is still lingering because I'm so not used to drinking and I'm desperate for a good nights sleep,

Thanks again brain that is a really really helpful suggestion.

How are you doing today?

Is your husband giving you the actions you deserve?
Also is he giving you just compensation that you deserve?

any ideas of on the consequences part?

NOW you ask this? This should have been part of the procedure in setting up the EPs. You evidently tried to implement MB-Lite, and that doesn't work too well, as you've discovered.

The "consequences" are a product of what you have the will and rigor to enforce. Going into that equation is your anger and unwillingness to countenance ongoing violations, and his expectation that you will follow through.

In our situation, my bride knows there can never be a "third chance". Right now, based on his willingness to test your resolve (and hoping that it fails) he's planning for chances three, four, five......

BTW: I just read his thread which you ordered(?) him to initiate. By his second note, he's already alibi-ing and giving us the "You don't understand; it wasn't like that...." crap.

Brain I'm waiting him to go to work so I can reply.

I'm doing well I'm keeping my nose out of his posting but assume he's getting the well deserved 2x4's.

He has started a conversation about why did I think the woman chose him and I replyed honestly.

Although we were together the whole evening, he was affectionate with me and attentive when we were introduced to the girls he could have tightened up his boundary then.

I spotted the girls interest in my H the minute she joined our group but was oblivious however we were both shocked when she sat on his lap.

I don't know if it's a female thing but I am mentally prepared to deal with any unwanted attention from the opposite sex while I find that my H is not.

NG I am really sorry but I had no idea as to setting consequences for broken EPs. I don't know why but it never occurred to me that this was something I needed to think about.

I know if he had a further A our marriage is over for reasons stated in previous posts but as far as braking other EPs I was dumb enough to be unprepared.

Right now his consequence is having to face e MB crowd and deal with setting back our recovery. Is this not enough?