Hello Everyone:

I have been coming to this site since January of this year. My H's affair began in October of 2001. I read every book that the Harleys have and even spoke to them on occassion in counseling and on their radio program. My H's affair ended a month ago and we have been in recovery every since with no contact with OW. Things are going well. My resentment is fading and my love for my H is growing daily. We are now able to talk about what happened and acknowledge mistakes that were made and learn from the whole situation.

Having gone through this thing and now having the benefit of experience I would never ever do a Plan A again. I totally disagree with the Harleys on this one. Plan A does nothing but add further disrespect to the already hurting BS. I would go straight to Plan B. It works. Not only does it remove you from the situation and allow you to breath and deal with your life without the A in your face all the time but it allows the A the chance it needs to become real.

Ultimately there is nothing the BS can do to end the A. It is on the WS and OP to do that. But there is no way I would allow myself to be the third party in that monster ever again. Just walk away. I like the old saying, "If you love someone let them go, If they never return they were not yours to begin with." It is a tough pill to swallow but in the end you gain your self respect which is so important in the end. In Plan A I felt like a freaking doormat just waiting to be stepped on again. In Plan B I felt empowered. That it was my choice not his, to live for me and not breathe the A every single moment of the day. Plan B also gives you the chance to look at yourself and examine and try to fix your faults. It gives you a chance to decide alone if the marriage is something you truly want.

In "Surviving the Affair" Steve Harley actually says not to put up with the A for one second. I put up with it for months and it wasn't until I did not put up with it that it ended. Now maybe the timing was just right but whatever, in Plan B I felt in control of my life and we all know how out of control you feel in Plan A.

In Plan A I found myself fighting for what I thought was mine. In Plan B I made the choice to let what I thought was mine choose me. And he did. Just my opinion. wu

Good to know that you are back together wu. Did he ever go on that family caravan trip(?) with you? What happened?

- relate

I've had similar thoughts about this myself, but let me ask you a question. What if you can't plan B because you are still living together, what do you do then? My WS never admitted her EA and neither of us could leave because of potential custody ramifications. It was over a year after d-day, after my W had filed for D and after we had finally reached a custody agreement before I could move out. My hands were tied. Leaving earlier may have given us a better chance to save our marriage, but I couldn't risk the custody ramifications. I would have been a weekend dad paying a large amount in CS. As it turned out, I have my daughter half the time with no CS. Yes, I have felt like a doormat, but it was worth it to get the best possible custody agreement I could.
Spouses come and go, children are forever.

sad dad

Wucus,
I'm starting to wonder also whether any thing the BS does will help....
By the way, you said once that you know me, but I don't know you...
Have I met you somewhere???
KK

Not to disagree entirely, I know Plan A sucks totally. But, you did do plan A. IMHO, it is part of a process. Does plan B alone work? maybe sometimes, Does plan A alone work? maybe sometimes, Does neither work? maybe sometimes. Who knows? I certainly don't. I am glad you are recovering though. It might be interesting to hear from people who know people who have gone through this without MB, I know I have heard alot of stories and everyone is different, some saved thier marriage, some didn't, some had no desire to, some have still not moved on after years of being away from the situation. Anyway just my 2-cents worth
S-

The reason Plan B "worked" is precisely BECAUSE you did Plan A before it. If you had not, the chances of it working would have been less or none.

In Plan A your S saw what you could be. When you went to Plan B, he wanted that back.

But in the end, plan or no plan, the ONLY thing that can work, is for the A to end and for both spouses to want to repair the marriage

I think going straight to B is a bit a risky route. Whilst you are right that plan A itself wont terminate the affair, it leaves the WS with a 'good impression' of you.
In my case, if I would have moved out/kicked WW out, she would have taken it as a 100% confirmation of her perception (which is, that I wouldnt care for her, that I would drop her, that I'm generally not fulfilling needs). Now, at least she has my nice side being rubbed into her face daily.
If it helps I dont know yet. One thing I do know is that if I move to B, it will be more effective than having moved out at D-Day.

But it's hard, and it hurts. You're right on that part.

Wucus: it sounds to me as though you didn't do your Plan A to its full potential. Plan A is NOT being a doormat. It's all about becoming a better person. Technically, we should all be in plan A every single day of our lives.

I totally understand how you felt empowered once you stepped into plan B. I felt the same way. But I can also look back and see how I didn't plan A my very best either. I knew I needed to go to plan B a.s.a.p., however, I also knew that I needed leave my H with a 'good impression' (last look). If I had gone straight to plan B, I wouldn't have been able to show him that.

I find it a little harsh to say that no plan A is necessary. I think our situations probably fit into the category of "minimal plan A" is necessary. JMHO, as I believe that you can't have plan B without plan A first.

Thank you for being brave enough to post this. It's likely to continue a most interesting discussion! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Karen

wucus, I know how you feel, because I look back to my own Plan A, see how my spouse used me, and wonder if I would have knocked sense into him quicker and preserved my dignity by going to B sooner.... but if I had, I truly believe I'd be divorced.

A friend of mine's H got involved in a co-worker affair. He had become very disconnected from her due to long work hours, long commute, lack of sex, 2 needy children etc. She never checked out any Harley stuff and kind of winged it. He wanted a divorce, so she filed papers a week after Dday. (he was shocked when he got them. she says, but you TOLD me to file!) there was no chance to reestablish a connection with him due to a lack of plan A. There were definitely LBs and a quick Plan B. Well now they are divorced (6 months post Dday)and he's moving thousands of miles away to OW. Maybe he wasn't worth the fight but it seems so sad. The only good thing is that her quick divorce enabled her to wangle a good settlement while his guilt is still fresh.

<small>[ September 05, 2002, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: espoir ]</small>

I think if I hadn't done Plan A, we'd be divorced instead of 2+ years of recovery. My Plan A gave me time to show my H that I love him, that I am committed to him, that he was important to me. All things that for one reason or another, he doubted.

I had to move beyond Plan A, B didn't work for our situation, and, after an 18 month Plan A, I served divorce papers (seems odd now that that felt more doable than Plan B). So in order for us to reconcile, my H had to put forth the effort. But I think if I had gone straight to a Plan B, or distancing...I think we'd have been divorced within 6 months because it would have fit with my H's perception that I didn't really care or need him and the OW did.

Thank you all for replying. It is interesting to hear how Plan A worked for you all. I guess I was just never Plan A material because there were but a few times when I did not want to commit murder.lol I did not like that I needed to change who I was when I felt I had been the most, best, greatest, bestest,...lol wife a man could have possibly had. I still feel that way. Ultimately, I guess I changed for the better and started improving myself for me. Not him. Or my kids although I finally in Plan B decided to put them first along with myself and stop concentrating on what my H and OW were doing, what they were saying,.... In Plan A I felt obsessed and possessed with the A. In Plan B I just let go and let God handle things. And my feeling is this, I never for one minute thought I would be divorced but if it had happened then I would say it was meant to be. And I was ready for it.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by wucus:
<strong>I did not like that I needed to change who I was when I felt I had been the most, best, greatest, bestest,...lol wife a man could have possibly had.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's what my xw felt, too.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by wucus:
<strong>I still feel that way. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I have no doubt that my xw still feels the same as well.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The only good thing is that her quick divorce enabled her to wangle a good settlement while his guilt is still fresh.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">And that is all that you can really hope for. I would never have filed, because I still love my H - but treating him decently, treating him like I knew that the good man was still inside there, had absolutely no positive results. He took advantage of me every chance he got, he scr*** me and the kids financially, he ended up financially secure and we ended up in poverty, and 3.5 years later he is still with the OW.

In retrospect, if one feels one can do it, the sensible thing to do is what your friend did.

Plan A is for many is the next step after the shock of d/d. Very few go straight to B. Fewer WS' come back only after plan A. At least that is what I have seen. However, plan A does have value.

Remember, plan A is not about fixing the WS. The WS needs to learn the error of their ways and work back to recovery by themselves and for them and their family. The WS must learn on their own to put their selfishness behind and realize that the A is detrimental to everyone including the WS.

However, plan A is where the BS can learn to see the A for what it is, learn to pull out the pieces that need to be brought to light and then fixing what can be fixed. In other words, for many plan A allows the BS to see how to better themselves. Emotional Needs questionnaire, learning not to LB, etc. Becoming a better, stronger and more emotionally attractive person.

Plan B becomes a requirement when the WS continues in their lack of disrespect after a reasonable amount of time is given for them to turn around. Plan B is executed to protect the love and emotional needs of the family.

Can some survive without enacting a good plan A? Yes. There are 2 types of recovery: Personal and Marital. Personal is within the control of each of us, marital requires cooperation between H & W. The WS must shed the actions and title of WS and then the BS will shed their title but keep the good learned actions. Then each retains the status of H & W and take their rightful place in the family.

JMHO,
L.

Folks, it looks like some of us need to RE-read the Harley books, as well as this entire site again. There are some terrible misinterpretations of Plan A floating around. If any of you doubt me, ask Steve - I did.

Plan A is ABOUT YOU!!! It's about becoming the besy YOU that you can be. It really has very little to do with your spouse (be they the BS or WS). It's about you looking deep inside of yourself and weeding out the things that you don't want to become.

As Steve said to me, "if you become the best person you can be, and are no longer doing the things that cause your (spouse) to distance, then if they file for divorce, they'll be divorcing a 'nice guy,' not the bad person they make you out to be."

Focus on YOU!

Kev

I am a FWS and will have to agree with you that Plan A does not work. My H plan A'd his butt off for as long as he could take and I (for some unknown reason) wanted nothing to do with him even though he was being so wonderful and I knew it. I kept convincing myself OM is better(boy was I wrong). The OP is ill equiped to fullfill all EN's of the WS when plan B is in effect, and the OM in my situation was not even M. When my H was in plan A it made it easy for me to take my time, do what I wanted to do, I knew he would be there. The second he went to plan B it was like reality came crashing down on me. He was no longer on the back burner he completly jumped off the stove and into the frig, if you know what I mean. I knew if I didn't do something I would loose him. I do think though for a plan B to be truly effective you have to have NO contact at all, kids or no kids. He told me he was no longer going to be a doormat and when I decided to be a real part of our M then we could talk. He had his mother drop and pick the kids up when he wanted to see them, wouldn't take my phone calls. He told everyone that both of us talked to not to talk to me about him. Talk about a wake-up call! Anyway the fog left very quickly and we have been in a great recovery for over 8 months. Our M is better now than it ever was.

To Spacecase and the others who posted about showing your WS what you could be by plan Aing, I think that has nothing to do with it I already knew what he could be that is why I married him in the first place. His plan Aing just made me feel sorry for him. It made him look desperate and pathetic in my eyes. I felt like here this man knows that I have OM and has such a low self-esteem that he is practically begging(not really but thats how I took it). So his plan A in my foggy eyes actually made him look worse. So I will have to say I am a strong plan B advocate.

DU

DU~~~

Do you know why you had an A in the first place? Was your H not meeting EN's ... or ... was there something else going on?

Congratulations on your recovery... keep up the good work.

Pepper <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

DU,

Not sure I'm up with your story myself... sorry if you've posted it elsewhere!

I'd be curious (I'm always asking questions, sorry!):

- How long was your H in "Plan B" before the fog started to lift?

- How did things start to happen around that time?

- What was the state with OM when all this started to happen?

Pepperband and J.R.,

My A started as a result of a combination of things, a small MLC maybe, I started working 60 hrs a week, spending less time with H and kids. We married very young so I think a part of me felt like I missed something. It started when I traded my family car, oldsmobile in for a brand new YELLOW mustang cobra. I think one of the biggest things MB preaches is that to have a great relationship you have to spend at least 15-20 hrs a week quality time with your spouse(I think that is right) any way prior to this MLC that I was having our marriage was wonderful. We always had time for each other, meeting each others EN's had never been a problem. We were in honeymoon stage the first 4 years we were married. So along with the new car came new clothes, new hair, music, friends(from work), and a new Sh!##y attitude <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />
He started not to like the person I was becoming and I felt like by him telling me, that I was changing he was trying to control me. So I rebeled. I went for a girls weekend out to the beach and met OM. I lied to OM saying I was legally seperated, living on my own etc., etc. It was easy to keep up with at first because the OM lived 100 miles away. My lies were slowly catching up with me but because I lived with my H he caught on first. He plan A'd for about 2 months after d-day, the entire time I was still seeing OM, still in fog. He left and complicated things more by having a revenge A. Boy did he give me a dose of my own medicine <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> , he lied about her, of course then came clean. We seperated for 2 more months with contact, he had broken off contact with OW (she is deranged and that is a whole other story). He started plan Aing again. The entire time I was still seeing OM, lying to H about it and sometimes getting caught. He finally had it. He came to our house and had a plan B "no contact" talk with me and told me how things were going to be. That he still loved me and would always love me but he wasn't a doormat and he wouldn't wait forever. I was thinking the whole time this is pathetic he really won't do this. His plan Aing he had been doing had shown me how much he needed me, and loved me he couldn't possibly go to a plan B. After the first two weeks of me partying it up, the OM was getting fed up of me being "seperated" he was not quite able to meet my EN like my H was. And there were still no calls from my H <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> FINE! I thought if he wants to play this game I'm not giving in. We will just see who needs who first. A month went by and still no contact, by then I started getting lonely and missing him, so I called and said I was ready to talk, he came over at my request and realized I still had a somewhat lousy attitude, defending my A (fog), blaming him (fog). So after about 20 minutes he left, no contact again for 2 weeks. All the time alone when he had the kids was really getting to me making me think about me. I guess that is when the fog started to lift I broke things off with OM by telling him the truth(that I never was seperated and he was an A) with my H listening in on the phone call. I guess that is when he decided to give it another chance, it was the first time he had heard the truth come out of my mouth in over 9 months. So that has been a little over 8 months ago and things are even better than before.
I am ashamed of myself for my MLC and my A. I hate the pain I put my H through. I am just glad it ended the way it did.

wucus,
sorry for hi-jacking your post <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

DU

DU~~

What kind of car do you drive now? (joking)

Plan A is for the BS to develop their own strengths ... to examine their own weaknesses ... and to make adjustments within themselves to become the very best person they can be. I don't think a revenge A is part of the deal (last time I checked <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> ).

Plan A is not to change the WS ... but to improve the BS. Did you know that?

Pepper <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" /> (who drives a sea green van <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> )