I am experiencing a lot of anger towards my WW right now. Sometimes it gets to the point where I have to leave the room. She isn't really doing anything to make me angry, I just feel so much anger.

I'm also wrestling with whether or not this is what I want. She appears to be just cordial with OM right now and I haven't heard her say that she is willing to break off contact with him. As a matter of fact, she said that even if she weren't working with him, she'd still talk to him.

I'm going to take TOOMuchCoffeeMan's advice and let her know that my love for her is slipping away with every day that she still talks to him. She refuses to give up her job -- since it's "the only thing" that's making her happy right now -- and the chances of her getting into another department here anytime soon are very slim. They aren't letting people leave her department right now.

My love for her is fading. She was away for a couple of nights and it was nice. She's back and now I just feel a load of anxiety and anger.

It's only been 1.5 months in Plan A, but I don't know that I can keep this up without feeling a lot of anger and resentment towards her and her indecisiveness right now. Is this to be expected during Plan A? I'm really thinking about Plan B. After talking to my pastor and church board member and reading "Torn Asunder" I'm thinking that this may be the way to go right now.

Any thoughts and experiences with this?

Rykon, I don’t have any experience in this, but I can tell you what I’m thinking: <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong> It's only been 1.5 months in Plan A, but I don't know that I can keep this up without feeling a lot of anger and resentment towards her and her indecisiveness right now. Is this to be expected during Plan A?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Rykon, all BS's have feelings of hurt, anger, pain, grief etc. to work through and this is perfectly normal, especially short after D-day and during early recovery. But your feelings of anger and resentment towards her can be expected MORESO because she is not committed to the M and still in contact with OM. You're not really in recovery. Recovery can only start after the A is over. The fact that she said even if she weren't working with him, she'd still talk to him, speak VOLUMES... This, together with the fact that you have already start to fall out of love with her, might be a strong indication that you need to move to plan B… Part of plan B is also to prevent you from falling completely out of love with your W. If this happens, the M will be over, but plan B can prevent this from happening. If you move to plan B, your W will be forced to choose between you and OM… She can’t have both. And if she decides to choose you, you must make it VERY clear to her that there can be NC between them FOR LIFE!

Hope this could help. Hopefully others will join soon to give their opinions.

Good luck,
Suzet

<small>[ October 20, 2004, 10:22 AM: Message edited by: Suzet* ]</small>

Rykon,

Please read the following from an article:

People need to get angry about what happened to them. They need to grieve over what happened. They need to stop diminishing or discounting the damage that was done to them.

People need to acknowledge what happened, take responsibility and show a willingness to make amends. If you unilaterally absolve someone who continues to treat you badly, who deny much of your reality and feelings, and who continue to project blame onto you, you may seriously impede the emotional work you need to do.

At this point, you may be wondering, understandably, if you will remain bitter and angry for the rest of your life. In fact, quite the opposite is true. What I have seen over the years is that emotional and mental peace comes as a result of releasing yourself from someone’s control. And that release can come only after you’ve worked through your intense feelings of outrage and grief and after you’ve put the responsibility where it belongs.

Rykon, you need to work through your feelings and put the responsibility where it belongs - your Wife. She needs to take responsibility for her actions before this M can start to heal.

Suzet

rykon,

There are plenty of "experts" on these plans, so hopefully they will respond soon.

However, my short take on it is:

You probably need to switch plans when 2 things are happening simultaneously:

1). You are no longer seeing signs of progress from all your efforts.

2). You yourself can no longer handle the mental pressure and emotional stress of not LBing, [seeing your Spouse's continued selfish behavior, ect.,.]
(In short your "love bank" is being drained to zero OR worse).

Then plan B is necessary at this point to protect YOU (so that you don't loose whatever "love" or positive feelings you do have left).

Because lets face it, its very Difficult to do a True Plan A. (many try....far fewer succeed)

Indeed, To be pleasant and considerate to someone who's hurting you is very counter intuitive.

How can it not be Hard to watch someone you love and want to be with, RUB an A in your face daily?

IMO BOTH of these factors need to be in place in order to justify switching to plan B.

Also keep in mind plan A is meant to have a time limit. (Usually 3-6 months)
If there is NO time limit set (that YOU will stick too) then you end up just becoming an enabler....as they become a "cake eater".
YOU DON'T want that!

So I guess there are 3 conditions:
Ask yourself,
First, are you really sticking to the "rules" for a true Plan A? (crucial to get anywhere)
Are you still seeing results from your actions?
Are you still motivated, committed, and strong enough to continue in plan A or are you getting burned out and therefore not STILL doing a real (& therefore EFFECTIVE) plan A?
Where are you at as far as a time limit?

Once you answer these questions for yourself, I think you'll know in which plan you need to be in right now. (And it may not be the ONE you WANT to be in).

Please don't despair, it seems that many plan A's do lead to plan B's.
The important part is doing plan A well, so that the plan B can be More effective.
(plan A is kind of like the set up man in baseball)
They are interdependent upon one another and you must follow the blue print (if you wish them to succeed, i.e.,: stopping the A and saving your M).

However, keep in mind that your plan A may not be working, because your NOT doing it correctly. (ONLY YOU know this!)
Don't give up on Plan A...if you've NOT actually given it a true shot.[It worked for me]

And even with doing it correctly..... a month and half is (IMO) not long enough to judge its effectiveness.

We ALL understand how tough and difficult this IS.
We support your efforts. You are NOT alone!

Hope this helps.
I would ask that others please respond as well.

Take care

Thank you for the responses.

Top Rope,

I can't say that I am Plan A-ing correctly. I am pretty sure that I have eliminated LB-ing. I have not begun to meet her EN as of yet though. I am confused as to whether or not these should be met now or after the A has ended. I have seen arguments for both.

I try not to talk about the M unless she brings it up. Part of the problem was a lack of passion in our M. When I'm distant, I think that she's thinking that I'm just going back to the way things were and when I'm loving, I think that she's trying to distance herself.

We have fun when we're together. She said that she's going to make an appointment for a counselor soon -- which she's said for the last few weeks.

I had a talk with Dr. Harley and he had just focussed on me trying to get her to even look at HNHN which I don't think she's done yet. Maybe I'm just looking at it in too much detail, but the methods seem really vague. Should I just focus on being her friend at this point? Did you go through this when you were Plan A-ing?

Hey Rykon,

top rope & suzet* make some excellent points. I will give you a link to another worthwhile thread:

Mthrrhbard's thread on length of Plan A

Hope it helps.

<small>[ October 20, 2004, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: Binder ]</small>

Rykon,
It is good to hear thatyou talked with Harley! What is HNHN?
I am familiar with TooMuchCoffeeMan and he has lots of experience & is a wise person with this stuff. Following his advice and how he says it is good!
It is very normal for you to be upset with your WW! I would have been concerned if you would not have mixed feelings! You are Human & it is only natural for you to feel lots of pain with this kind of betrayal.

A difficult thing with this bad news is to be able to sort out the facts from fiction – you want to believe what your W is telling you, yet in your gut you know that she has betrayed you & has been deceptive & is acts very self-centered!

It seems you have read lots of the Harley Material – I would recommend lots of reading particularly about infidelity. Another resource which I believe adds a good perspective is a book by James Dobson, “Love Must Be Tough” – It offers guidelines for Plan B kinds of actions. He emphasizes certain strategies to win back the attention from your WW. But don’t let her see the book. He talks about things like the Plan A strategy, that you have to try hard to demonstrate some independence & self confidence – we would not want for someone to attracted to us because they feel sorry for us as an example – this is not a sound strategy to wins someone’s attention – you have reason for self-pity, but this is not an appealing image to portray to your WW. Heavy Load!! Try to keep a positive spirit, so you present a strong image to your W. This is not to say that you have to suck-up to her ideas! She has her views on things & you have every right to have yours, even if they don’t agree with hers. I don’t think you can read in any material about recovery that recommends following the BS ideas as the blue print!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> Where she is now, it sounds like she is going to milk this for a long as you allow it!

In your other thread there was WW whom I thought expressed very clearly the problems with staying on the job where the OM works. When you tell of her expressing the fact that it is her job that gives her satisfaction – I say, with the OM & all that stimulation?! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> And when you say that she is a work-aholic – again, this is where she carries on the A! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> This is Bull Crap! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> And I think(HOPE) you recognize it is the FOG talking! Like I said before & you confirmed this in a post simultaneous to mine(on your other thread), she is in her Glory so to speak, with two guys vying for her attention! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> She even said that she likes it – two special guys that want her! This is very disrespectful & epitomizes her focus on herself!!

Have you read the articles about how to prevent an affair? Of course the WS will object to many checks & balances. Limitations & accountability offered here are threatening to the continued freedom to continue the A & the WS may get defensive with accusation of being "smothered," for example. This is because they feel justified in some ways (for whatever reasons?!) and feel no real remorse & they want to keep the options open to continue these wondering ways! The A can be like a drug, it feeds a void of sorts, creates excitement & it can be a very strong thing that they don’t want to give up. Particulariloy if the BS allows it - definately an "Enabling" thing! It re-inforces a "NEED to Cheat" kind of mentality! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> If this is the case the WS can be very resourceful with ways to hide the truth and continue the A, just as it was, if not stronger! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> Did you have lots of contact with her when she was away at the motel (for business) with the OM?

It is unfair to make generalizations of course, but there are plenty of people here with varied, but similar experiences with what you are going through & we want to help where we can.
Take what you like & leave the rest.
Peace be with you, <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />
HH