At the request of another member I am reposting this from Recovery to here.

There seems to be a lot of confusion lately about how the MB approach to resolving an affair works and what the point of various aspects is.

So forgive the fact that I have the eloquence of a drunken drill sergeant at times but here's my "Recovery for Dummies" synopsis from the other board:


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In order to quell an intense desire to strangle the next pop psychologist who puts forth a touchy feely theory about helping a marriage recover from an affair I wanted to put this down on 'paper'.

Old Willard wasn't off the mark in his theories about how to beat an affair and save a marriage so let's remember what they are.

What is the goal?
Simple: First break the affair and keep it broken so that love can be restored to the marriage.
What is not the goal?
Getting even, making it fair, making sure OP lands on a nice pillow instead of getting dumped on their [censored].
What is the prize you are fighting for?
The security, love, joy and strength that a happy marriage provides.

OK, so let's break these down MB style:
How to break the affair
1. Ideally WS does it on their own.
2, If life is taking a day off from ideal, you go to Plan A.
Plan A
Simple goal: break the affair by exposing it and putting pressure on it while being the best you possible. You don't lovebust, scream, call names, throw things. For a FINITE time you try to be loving and kind and ensure that if Plan B is required your spouse is leaving with a last memory of a loving, devoted spouse who cares for them deeply. In Plan A you do NOTHING to assist the affair and there is no such thing as unfair: You reveal it to OP's spouse, family, preacher, plumber and parents - anyone who is likely to exert pressure to break the affair. You MUST remember something here - affairs are all sizzle and no steak. It is infatuation. There are no mortgages, kids needing braces, no real-life and no real foundation. it is easy to be lovey dovey for an hour or two per week. A REAL relationship, one in the public eye, one with a basis in reality has a tough time competing with the affair in terms of the short-term 'intensity' but the affair has one helluva time competing with a marriage and a history once the lights are on and the fantasy ruined. One good push and it generally topples over.
If that does not work you go to Plan B.
Plan B
You can not live with an ongoing affair indefinately and still love the cheating spouse unless your first name is "Saint" and even then it is tough. If exposing the affair and asking the WS to stop does not work then before you kill or divorce them you leave or kick them out. You do so with a letter explaining that in order to preserve your love for them you simply are not able to be interact with them unless/until they give up the affair, agree to no contact and agree to work on the marriage. Plan B is a next to last resort and works a very high percentage of the time. Plan B has very clear risks - WS can decide that they want to go be with OP forever, OP can take them and you can wind up divorced. If so, you were probably headed there on WS's terms anyway. In my experience here and in my own case the WS came around when it occured to them that they were going to lose their marriage, Push comes to shove and OP gets discarded in favor of spouse almost always.
Affair is broken, Recovery has a chance to start
If and when one of the above breaks the affair the work begins. The path to success is painful but not complicated. BS and WS each have responsibilities if recovery is going to work and each has to sacrifice some pride and dignity.
WS - Needs to first of all write a NO CONTACT letter or commit to No contact. Simply put, if there is ANY contact it is through the NC letter.
So what does a good no contact letter say and not say
First off, it gives absolutely no encouragement, caring, sympathy etcetera to the OP. It has one purpose and that is to inform OP that it is over for good, the affair was a mistake and a very cruel, hurtful one that you regret and your only purpose in life is to restore your marriage. If you have writer's block, this will do:
"OP:
Our affair was wrong and I deeply regret the pain it has caused to my spouse. I intend to do everything in my power to restore my marriage and ask you to respect my desire for no contact of any kind with you. This will be my only communication to you henceforth and any attempts by you to contact me will be ignored"

No justifications, no "IloveYouBut" crap, no glimmer of hope and damnit you FOLLOW what you say in that letter to the letter. IF you are stupid, proud or just well, stupid and try to 'be friends' with OP and smoothe it all over you are kidding yourself and being a selfish a-hole and hurting your spouse more. I have heard every conceivable reason a WS can come up with for keeping contact and they all suck. I wrote half of them and they were all lies to myself and 6 attempts at ending it and being friends ended in disaster. On D-day I went to no contact one time and it worked. Do the math - 0/6 or 1/1 any questions?

WS: Your next task is to start repairing the harm you have done through your selfish and cruel behavior. First on the list is to start telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Get it out of your system and you no longer have to live with secrets. Fear of discovery and the stress of knowing those secrets will kill you - purge like a bulemic at thanksgiving. The smartest thing you can now do is to give up your secrets - cell records online, spending accounted for to the penny, NEVER a moment out of contact via cellphone, email account passwords given up and volunteer for a polygraph at any time. Go all out and make it IMPOSSIBLE to cheat, trust me it will save you a ton of arguments, stress and crap and since you are not doing anything to be ashamed of for a change there si nothing to hide. Privacy Schmivacy - your spouse will be the one who takes care of you and changes your diaper when you are 95, privacy is not necessary (and maybe they'll let you sit in a poopie diaper if you piss them off long enough). Sadly you can't make this right, all you can do is never repeat the wrong and not drag out the wrong you already did by holding onto lies. Be French about it - surrender completely and totally and give up the fight.

BS: Your end of the deal sucks. Get used to this idea: "I chose recovery over revenge, retribution and/or divorce and I chose to be stuck with half the responsibility for fixing a mess I did not make". You do not get to use the affair when losing an argument about whose turn it is to take the trash out or drive to soccer practice. You just signed on to be accountable to your spouse for half the work, half the changes and half the responsibility for the state of the marriage before the affair and you did so willingly so live up to it. The affair did not happen in the midst of a perfect marriage - there were problems - hunt those problems down, identify them and kill them.
But, But, that is so unfair - WS got to have all the fun and I get to do half the work fixing it?
Yup, because it ain't about fair and getting even it is about being happy. Getting even won't make you happy and WS can't make up for what they did - ever. There are two winners or two losers in this deal - no middle ground.
So what do you get out of the deal? A happy marriage and family. If that prize is not worth it to you quit now.
So how do you restore love and trust?
Slowly.
Job 1 is figuring out where you lost it. You do not want to recover the marriage you had the day before the affair started. That marriage was badly broken in one or several areas. Do the MB questionairres - I have tested them and they worked for me thereby proving conclusively that they are idiot proof. You WILL learn a lot from those. TALK about them, GIVE first then ask. It is worth it.

Job 2 is figuring out how to fix those areas. In all likelihood your marriage beat the affair in all EN categories except 1-2. That's why WS's come home - selfishly they know that their marriage means more than the affair which met only 2-3 EN's very well or perfectly.

By following the MB marriage principles in the meantime - Honesty and openness, POJA, etcetera you learn to resolve conflicts rather than withdraw and build resentment. Never complain about what you permit and don't permit what you would complain about. I direct this more at WS's - fight damnit, don't hide and then go have an affair. If it takes all night to solve it then make the damned coffee and get comfortable.

If, along the way you are both careful to protect your marriage by LEARNING FROM the things that led to the affair, continuing to be completely open and honest then a repeat affair is unlikely. For us these days it would be a real nuisance - hiding it nearly impossible. Besides - i offered to go on the polygraph box and answer fidelity questions any time, and day, any reason without argument or hurt feelings. if there is nothing to be afraid of such a promise is easy.

Only time will heal the pain of the affair, at the end of that time you can be back to the old bad habits or you can have a new relationship without them. Y'know what? Things were better almost immediately from the INSTANT I knew it was in the open and i was getting a second chance. There is NOTHING in the MB plan that says recovery has to be miserable so make it fun whenever possible. Once you've decided to repent/forgive you may as well make the most of it.

What kills the plan?
1. Contact with OP. Let's do the Cliff's notes version of No Contact - you can't screw someone if you never talk to them or come within 100 yards of them, period.

2. Settling the score and making it fair.
Want to find fair in this process? it comes after "Af" and nowhere else. BS's get stuck in this crack - how can I just let it go when the scales are so unbalanced? Easy - because you ain't doin it for the WS you are doing it because all things considered you want to be happy tomorrow and there is nothing that can make the past OK.

3. Pride - whether it is the WS who is too proud to take responsibility and accept the consequences (no secrets/lies/privacy) or whether it is the BS who is determined to get even before forgiving. For the WS Pride is useful - if you take pride in being faithful and honest and acting from integrity. For the BS Pride is useful when you can say "I could have divorced you, I could have gotten even and instead I CHOSE to love you and forgive you and I am happy now that I chose to do that" There is nothing weak about giving a second chance - you do it because you would rather do it than lose your spouse. YOU make that decision when even God allows divorce for infidelity without argument. It is YOUR call. There is nothing weak in making the call to respond with grace - mercy where none is deserved.

4. Stupidity: The affair has 2 useful aspects - it can make you realize the grass is not greener and it can be examined to see what caused it. Learn from it, learn all you can about what bad habits made it possible and change those habits. Repeating mistakes once you understand them is stupid.
- Know what your spouse is doing and make sure they know what you are doing
- Know where your spouse's satisfaction level with EN's is and do your best to meet them better.
- Know where YOUR satisfaction level is and let your spouse know where you are unsatisfied. Let them know in a non accusatory fashion "I need your help here, there and there - where do you need me to do better for you?"
- Don't, Don't form inappropriate opposite sex relationships, whether you were BS or WS have boundaries. Sharing your deepest feelings with another person innocently can and often does result in sharing a bed with them.
- Don't ever forget how much pain there was on D-day
- Don't be nasty. Your spouse, more than anyone else, has the capacity to make or ruin your day. Expect/demand consideration and lead the way by showing it.
- Remember the affair did not start in bed - it started over lunch, over the computer - whenever you started sharing things with an opposite sex person that you should not have - after that it was a matter of time.

There is a lot more to it obviously but let's start there. We all want the same things. Logically we all see where the MB principles support what we want and we all forget to do some/all of them sometimes.

Is there anyone who has done all of these and failed?

Is there anyone who has ignored No Contact or anyone who has insisted on getting even who has been successful?

No plan is perfect. Harley's works but you have to work the plan and follow it. You follow it on days when you feel like it and you follow it on days when you don't.

Why?

Go back and review what the goal was.

So how many of us are getting closer to the goal and how many further away? Who is 'stuck' and not getting anywhere? Figure out where you are headed and think about why.

Now what are you going to do to get the hell off this rollercoaster and on with the rest of your life? What is that life going to be like? What kind of marriage do you want?

What are YOU willing to do to get there?

"I Love you" is easy, "I was wrong and I'm sorry" is harder.

Unless everything is going great already get back with the program and figure out where YOU need to do more.

Thanks 2oak,
It is so easy to forget the basic principles sometimes. Thanks for posting this.

mtheart

2ofAkind.. I read everything you post! I'm impressed by your insight, too bad all WS don't understand as well.

You said "So what does a good no contact letter say and not say
First off, it gives absolutely no encouragement, caring, sympathy etcetera to the OP. It has one purpose and that is to inform OP that it is over for good, the affair was a mistake and a very cruel, hurtful one that you regret and your only purpose in life is to restore your marriage. If you have writer's block, this will do:
"OP:
Our affair was wrong and I deeply regret the pain it has caused to my spouse. I intend to do everything in my power to restore my marriage and ask you to respect my desire for no contact of any kind with you. This will be my only communication to you henceforth and any attempts by you to contact me will be ignored"d as well!"

I would have loved it if that was what my H said. Instead he told her he couldn't "just be friends" with her so he needed to stay away all together. I know he told her he still loved her and would always miss her. What that did for me is leave me with the constant fear that she will contact him again. I had a nightmare a few nights ago where she was standing in our kitchen with him and he told me he was moving in with her again. I can't get the fear out of my mind! It's not easy living with knowing that there's a woman out there who believes my H "settled" for me and that one call from her could get him to leave again. His NC speech (there was no letter) left the door open for future contact.

NC letters are not for Op, they are for the BS and WS since they are the only two people involved in recovery.

You might guess I am really hateful toward OP's and you'd be missing the point - i don't hate'm and in some ways i feel sorry for'm but bottom line is this: They have no role in your recovery. They did something stupid when they got involved with a person who was already taken. In the real world when you do something stupid a great big Rottweiler named 'reality' bites a huge chunk out of your [censored] as a reminder not to be stupid.

NC letters that go through a bunch of dramatic heartfelt (sniffle sniffle) platitudes to ease the blow and provide 'closure' (oh puke) do nothing but throw gas on the fire.

NC letter in summary says "We are done, this was wrong, love my spouse, don't contact me".

It frustrates me no end to see WS's screw up the simple stuff. You don't give the OP a tearful sendoff you tell them the truth - they are no longer a part of your life and will never be anything to you in the future except a mistake that you regret, end of discussion.

Recovery has two parties, not three. OP's recovery is their problem, not yours.

2ofAkind, I understand that you don't "hate" OP, but I read from your words things like "selfish A-hole" and "selfish and cruel behavior" so it's safe to say you had some anger at yourself, no?

Given that, why do you have no anger at the OW? This really confuses me <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> Assuming you went into it thinking that you could just have an affair and your wife would never know, as most men do. And the OW went into it thinking that she could take you away from your wife, as most OW do. Why doesn't it anger you that someone SET OUT to hurt the woman you "love"?

In my case that was her agenda from the first time he told her he wasn't happy in our M. She was already leaving her h due to his "abuse" of her daughter (which I don't think was true) she goes from one relationship to the next with none lasting more than 2 years and that one had just ran out of time. She was trying to save enough money to leave when she realized that my H might be her ticket out of there sooner. He did eventually get angry with her, when she proved that she didn't care about HIM. After something very bad happened to him, something that could have cost him his life, she had a non chalant attitude about it. Then HE realized that she was "nothing but a mooch" and only used him. But he is NOT mad at her for destroying MY life and hurting our son just to make leaving her H financially easier for her.

So should he be mad at her? ONLY if he LOVES ME! If he doesn't then I guess he shouldn't care that causing me more pain than I ever thought possible to survive should be a reason for him to get angry at the person who set out to do that, for very selfish reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with any feelings for him.

<small>[ April 15, 2004, 04:58 AM: Message edited by: toomanylies ]</small>

2ofakind - well done.

thanks 2ofakind, i think that you're really one of the harley's in diguise <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> i printed it out to save for later when/if my H wakes up and softens his heart to me again. prayers to you.

Thanks 2ofakind. I am printing it out too.

I never did find your recovery thread!!! Can you point me in that direction??? Thanks!

Great post! I've had a struggle with making it fair, but you know what? Absolutely nothing I could do other than have an affair myself would make it fair. Maybe that's why BSs become WSs. "Fair" is a code word for win-lose relationships where you try to even the score. Harley proposes win-win relationships.

Best post I have ever read. Thanks for taking so much time for us.

NY

TooManyLies:

Simple - I don't allow myself to hate OW for the affair, I do despise what she did to hurt my family when it ended but my refusal to blame her has nothing to do with protecting her.

it is really simple - the blame is mine, not willing to share it with her because she is not part of US. I will take 100% of the blame and responsibility and will steadfastly refuse to let her take that from me.

WHY? No, I'm not into self torture. I'd rather live with it as my responsibility 100%. OW was a really disgusting human being in many ways but her obligations to be a good human being are her issue.

If I allow myself to say that she seduced me then i am saying i am a weak and spineless creature who can't control what his pecker is thinking.

Nuh-uh. I did fail once but damned if I am going to allow myself or anyone else to think that i am such a spineless jellyfish that I can't control my impulses.

We all have temptations. My beloved and I are fairly attractive and likeable and will get propositioned numerous times over the next X years.

HOWEVER - there are two of us and we are a team and OW is not on that team. What happened to us was 100% our fault. We both failed to make the realtionship what it should have been and i failed to be faithful and caused a trainwreck for which i am 100% accountable.

Don't be messing with my blame :-) the difference between THAT guy and this guy is that the old one could justify and rationalize it away as not his fault. This one says "BULLSH1T!" - nobody but me can make me do something evil and wrong and I refuse to do it. I changed where I draw my self esteem from - I can't be proud of the affair but i can be proud when I look in the mirror and say "Since D-day i have never broken No Contact, i have not lied about the affair, I have changed my life and our relationship and i am living in a way i can take pride in because I am living with integrity now.

...and no potential OW can sway that whether I got 'caught' or not because now an affair would destroy ME and everything I like about myself.

...what blame the OP carries is irrelevant - we want to hate them when the WS is really the guilty party for a simple reason - it is hard to hate the WS who you love and the OP is not relevant - so we dump the hate on them.

That is useful early in recovery - Us against OP mindset helps as it gives you something to be partners in and gets you defending your marriage and each other.

...just never allow a WS to blame it all on OP later on because taking responsibility for it and owning that one is a big part of shielding yourself from the mistakes tht led up to it.

<small>[ April 15, 2004, 09:51 AM: Message edited by: 2ofaKind ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by momto3boys:
<strong> Thanks 2ofakind. I am printing it out too.

I never did find your recovery thread!!! Can you point me in that direction??? Thanks! </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Check on the recovery board - it is near the top and has had a lot of discussion over there from some ooooold timers.

...and Roughroad? I'm guessing the Harley's would choke at the suggestion that I was one of them - they are a lot more tactful and haven't had any affairs that I've heard about

LOL

Awesome. Just what I needed to hear. That is...that all this crazym counterintuitive stuff actually works.

Good for you! :-)

well 2ofakind, i guess when you put it that way, i can see how that wasn't necessarily a compliment. how about saying you are a well-trained counselor in disguise, doing what they can to help others? regardless, we all thank you for what you have "given" us. prayers to you.

2Oak, would you e-mail me off-board? I've got a question for you. (My e-mail's in my sig.)

Just_J

Check yer inbox.

Generally I don't talk offline to any female board members but I figured it is pretty safe after checkin yer links :-)

2oak:

Hey, that post just caused some MC book sales to go down! You pretty much said it all! Wow!

I don't blame my OW for the A either. I made the decision; but I do blame OW for not letting me go and letting her and her H hatred of me turn into their hobby, after I broke it off. I wish they would visit this site and learn to get off my back and move on with their M. Maybe they know they don't have anything to salvage, and so turning their anger towards me is what is keeping them together. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" seems to be their mindset.

<small>[ April 20, 2004, 01:06 AM: Message edited by: whiteknight ]</small>

Whitenight - Hatred is a bit too close to love - ambivalence is what ya want.

If they are harassing you then get a mutual restraining order - you need to worry about your marriage and not theirs.

So often people focus on how to deal with the OP and the OP's spouse.

One word answer: DON'T!

If they are focused on you then they are not going to improve much but that is not your problem - you have a BS to be sucking up to right about now :-)

You do not need an attorney for a restraining order - if they harass you document it, file a TRo and an affidavit and as long as it is mutual courts grant Temporary RO's without a second thought. Then there is typically a hearing within 14 days and the other party must either prove that they SHOULD be allowed to call, threaten, harass or else the judge makes it permanent.

...little know fact, it is hard to have an affair with someone when they can't legally come within 100 yards of you.

No contact at all costs is the single most important part of recovery - pissing contests involving lots of emotional energy are actually likely to restart it.

FOW harassed us until she got hit with a couple felony B&E and identity theft charges and we haven't seen her since.

Seriously - the only place you want to see the OP henceforth is on a milk carton so chase her off. Nobody enjoys getting popped with a RO at work and the nice thing is that no matter how pissed they are they CAN'T call and b1tch.

BTW - Read all the books, twice... you'll take a little something new from each one each time :-)

Good to read this. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />